Book TFf 6^" 

Copyright^? 

CUESRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 

A Study of the One True Church 



BY 

WILLIAM F. ROBISON, S.J. 
Professor of Theology, St. Louis University 



B. HERDER BOOK CO. 
17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 
and 

68 Great Russell St. London, W. C. 
1918 



IMPBIMI POTEST 
Sti. Ludovici, die 14 Aprilis, 1918 

A. J. Burrowes, S. J. 
Praep. Provincialis 
Prov. Missour. 

NIHIL OB ST AT 
Sti. Ludovici, die 11 Aprilis, 1918 

F. G. Eolweck, 
Censor Librorum. 

IMPRIMATUR 
Sti. Ludovici, die 18 Aprilis, 1918 

►J* Joannes J. Glennon, 

Archiepiscopus 
Sti. Ludovici 

Copyright, 1918 
by 

Joseph Gummersbach 
All rights reserved 
Printed in U. S. A. 

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VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 

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©GLA503025 



TO 

MY MOTHER 



FOREWORD 



For many years St. Francis Xavier (Col- 
lege) Church has been accustomed to help 
towards the sanctification of the Lenten sea- 
son by a series of lectures on doctrinal sub- 
jects. Two years ago I decided, as the 
appointed lecturer, to enter the field of apol- 
ogetics and to take up the study of the 
foundations of our Christian faith. The 
lack of clear-cut and definite knowledge of 
some of our Catholic people and the misty 
notions about religion so common outside of 
the Church were reasons enough for the 
choice of such a subject. 

Accordingly in the series of two years ago 
I treated of Christ's Masterpiece, and stud- 
ied Catholicity, as being Christianity in the 
concrete. Last year, going back a step, I 
examined the grounds of our faith in the 
divinity of Jesus Christ, which is really the 
tap-root of the fair tree of Christian reve- 



FOEEWOED 

lation ; and in the Lent just past I took up 
the reasons for the necessity of religion in 
general. The conclusion of this necessarily 
short, but fairly comprehensive view of 
apologetics seems a fitting time to yield to 
the advice and urgings of those whose opin- 
ion I value, and to publish the lectures with 
a view to wider and deeper good. 

It is hardly needful for me to say that I 
make no claim to any striking originality in 
this presentment of Catholic truth. The 
saying, " novelty is the sign of error," might 
well warn any one from even the attempt to 
depart too much from the beaten path. The 
ordinary theological treatises have fur- 
nished the substratum of thought, and spe- 
cial works, like the Dictionnaire Apologe- 
tique of A. d'Ales, have been laid under 
contribution. 

I have deemed it best to print the dis- 
courses just as they were given. Some 
advantage might have resulted from a re- 
casting; but the process might also have 
taken away from the directness and force of 
the form of the spoken word. Besides, in 
the present shape the lectures have the ad- 



FOKEWOKD 



vantage of having been " tried out" with no 
little resultant good; and I have thought it 
unwise to forego a sure advantage for a 
problematical improvement. 

In giving this work of zeal and love to the 
public I am convinced that the doctrine is 
true and solid ; I hope that it is put forward 
with clearness and strength ; and I pray that 
it may be of help both to those who are of 
the household of the faith, and to those 
earnest and sincere inquirers outside of her 
blessed fold, who are following after the 
"Kindly Light." 

William F. Eobison, S.J. 

St. Louis University, 
Easter, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

Foreword 



LECTURE I 

THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 

Special importance of apologetics : repels attacks : 
leads to truth. Three parts in knowledge of 
foundations. Scope of present inquiry. 
Christ the King. Gradual revelation of per- 
son and mission. Perfection of manhood: 
contrast with saints. Legate of God. Very- 
God. The Kingdom. Meaning. God's dis- 
pensation with Israel. Description of King- 
dom. Correction of false views of Jews: 
refutation of later misconceptions. . . 

LECTURE n 

THE GREAT CHARTER OP THE KINGDOM 

Christ's words to the Twelve. Their antecedents : 
their vocation. Attitude of " Higher Crit- 
ics. ' ' Teaching power. Authoritative. In- 
fallible. Faith demanded by Christ: ex- 
acted by Apostles. Practical application. 
Sanctifying power. Indirect. Direct. Great 
gift of sacramental system. Power of 
jurisdiction. Flows from Charter. Ex- 



CONTENTS 



plieit declaration of Christ. The Church 
a society. Founded by Christ. Not an un- 
foreseen development 35 

LECTURE III 

SOME PREROGATIVES OF THE KINGDOM 

Review. Perpetuity. Double aspect of Apos- 
tles ' position. Meaning of indefectibility. 
Adversaries. Christ's will: parables: prom- 
ise to Peter: to Twelve. One only Church. 
Proof. Branch theory. Discussion. Neces- 
sity. Antecedent probability. Christ's 
formal declaration. Not only necessary by 
command: a means to end. Can it be sup- 
plied? Toleration true and false. ... 68 

LECTURE IV 

THE PRIMATE OP THE KINGDOM 

One way to find Church. Primacy: of honor: 
of jurisdiction. Peter's place among the 
Twelve. Incomprehensible without primacy. 
Christ's promise. Words to Peter alone. 
Contents of promise: foundation: key- 
bearer. Conferring of primacy. An evasion. 
Primacy perpetual. Involves infallibility. 
True and false meanings. Where is Peter? 
Not in Protestant or Creek churches. Is in 
Catholic Church alone. Conclusion . . . 101 

LECTURE V 

THE SEAL OF THE KING'S SIGNET 

Another viewpoint. Warning as to controversial 
purpose. A parable and its application. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Two tests. The moral norm. Sanctity. Its 
meaning and grades. Is a note. Not found 
in non-Catholic churches. Their principles 
and practice. Holiness of Catholic Church. 
The juridical criterion: apostolicity with 
unity in catholicity. Christ's will. Appli- 
cation : non-hierarchical Protestant churches : 
Episcopal churches: Greek churches. Cath- 
olic Church. Same conclusion .... 135 

LECTURE VI 

THE BRIDEGROOM AND HIS BRIDE 

Resume. Another proof according to Vatican 
Council. Special union between Christ and 
Church. Body of Christ. Members of 
Christ. Christ the head. His preemin- 
ence. His care for Church. Effects. 
Bride of Christ. More perfect union than in 
Old Law. Paul's teaching. Epistle to 
Ephesians. Mother of faithful. Church's 
benefits to soul: to body: to society. Rela- 
tion between temporal and spiritual goods. 
Foundation of civilization: culture: art: 
learning. Beneath the cross . . . . . 171 



CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 

LECTURE I 

THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 

Special importance of apologetics: repels attacks: 
leads to truth. Three parts in knowledge of 
foundations. Scope of present inquiry. Christ 
the King. Gradual revelation of person and 
mission. Perfection of manhood: contrast with 
saints. Legate of God. Very God. The King- 
dom. Meaning. God's dispensation with Is- 
rael. Description of Kingdom. Correction of 
false views of Jews: refutation of later miscon- 
ceptions. 

The holy season of Lent is preeminently 

a season of penance and prayer; a time of 

atonement for the evil of our lives and of 

preparation for more godly living in the 

days to come ; a period of heartfelt pleadings 

with God for strength to be stronger than 

our weakness. Penance and prayer tear 

away the mask of pretence or hypocrisy from 

our souls, and place us in the presence of 

God in the naked reality of our littleness. 

1 



2 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



As a consequence we are in a more serious 
frame of mind ; we are dragged away from 
the frivolity of the reckless world. In this 
sobriety of spirit we are much better dis- 
posed to see the splendid light of the great 
doctrinal truths, which shine through the 
darkness of the world's ignorance; with 
God's grace we are more ready to follow 
whither the light leads, — and that is always 
to the feet of our great and loving Lord. It 
is for this reason, I take it, that instructions 
and sermons are multiplied during this sa- 
cred time : it is for this reason that we are to 
enter upon this course of Lenten Lectures, 
which will have to do with doctrinal subjects. 

One of the most important matters of con- 
sideration for all at this time of such clash- 
ing claims on religious matters is the posi- 
tion of the Catholic Church in the world and 
her demands upon the conscience of all man- 
kind. In view of this it is my purpose dur- 
ing the present course of lectures to treat of 
that Church of Christ, of her right to our 
allegiance, of the reasons of her mighty pow- 
ers. The Church asks much of her chil- 
dren, — unrestricted loyalty, absolute and 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 3 



irrevocable assent in matters of divine 
faith, unhesitating and loving obedience in 
matters of discipline ; but she asks no more 
than Christ commissioned her to ask. It 
will, therefore, be especially useful to ex- 
amine the grounds of her claims to our sub- 
mission and allegiance. 

I say, especially useful ; and there is rea- 
son for the word. Time was when the battle 
against truth was waged with regard to some 
particular point of divine revelation ; but to- 
day the battle has gone further back, as the 
very foundations of divine faith are assailed. 
Now it is not so much a question as to 
whether God revealed this or that truth, as 
whether there is such a thing as revelation 
at all or any such thing as an authorized 
guardian and interpreter of that revelation ; 
nay, with some the question is whether there 
is any God who can make a revelation. It 
is the foundations of faith that are assailed ; 
and there we must turn our defense. 

Nay, even without reference to attack and 
defense thinking men and women should be 
able to render an account of the faith that 
is in them: they may well broaden and 



4 CHKIST'S MASTBEPIECE 



deepen and strengthen the intellectual foun- 
dations on which their faith is based. And 
in their efforts in this direction the condi- 
tions for grasping the truth and holding it 
are the will to believe, which is the hunger 
and thirst after justice, and deep humility, 
which is the way fixed by God, who knows 
the weakness of our tottering steps. 

Our purpose in the consideration of the 
grounds of faith is not to reexamine whether 
the assent of faith has been well given (that 
would be disloyalty) ; but to see more clearly 
how reasonably it has been given. When 
we see this in all its evidence, there will be 
no danger of half -sincerity in the profession 
of faith; before the sarcastic attacks of 
sneering opponents one's faith will not fail 
merely because he has never taken stock of 
the reasonable foundations of his supernat- 
ural assent to divine revelation. If he had 
done so, he would see that the act of faith 
is so far from being the dethronement of 
reason, that it is its highest and most glori- 
ous exercise : he would see that the most ir- 
rational of all men are those who call them- 
selves rationalists: he would be able to de- 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 5 



fend his faith against those who attack it 
through ignorance or malice: he would be 
able to stretch forth a helping hand to those 
who are groping in the darkness, and would 
lead them on to the home of peace and light 
in the abode of God with men. 

The three main questions answered by this 
fundamental knowledge of the grounds of 
faith are these : first, is there a God? and can 
He speak to men? Secondly, has He done 
so? In particular, is Jesus Christ the ap- 
proved messenger of God ? Was the Apos- 
tle right when he said: "God who in divers 
manners spoke in times past to the fathers 
by the prophets last of all in these days hath 
spoken to us by His Son"? 1 In other 
words, was Jesus of Nazareth the accredited 
legate of God, nay, was He in very truth 
God as well as man ? And thirdly, the first 
two points being firmly established, did 
Christ commit the safeguard of His revela- 
tion and of His religion to a Church with 
powers fixed by Himself? What and 
where is that Church ? 

During the present course of lectures it is 

i Heb. I, 1, 2. 



6 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



not my purpose to dwell at length upon the 
first two points : these will form the subjects 
of later courses of lectures, if Cod so wills. 
For the present we shall take them for grant- 
ed; and we need not fear, for they are as 
firm as the eternal hills. The existence of 
God is proved beyond the reach of cavil by 
the unanswerable arguments drawn from the 
existence of the visible world with its life 
and motion; by the manifest design in the 
vast universe, which demands a wise and 
powerful Creator ; by the voice of conscience 
(so many think), speaking with irresistible 
authority, and leading the mind up to the 
knowledge of the author of all law; by the 
universal, and hence infallible, conviction of 
all mankind as to the existence of a Supreme 
Being. 

The ambassadorship of Christ and His 
divinity too are proved by His sanctity, His 
doctrine, His miracles, His prophecies, His 
resurrection ; by the testimony of the Father 
and the Holy Spirit ; by the teaching of the 
Apostles confirmed from on high ; by the fact 
of the miraculous spread of His religion, and 
by the declaration of His Church, proved 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 7 



infallible by reasons other than His own 
promise. Tonight by way of preparation 
for what is to follow I shall touch upon the 
legacy and divinity of Christ, as shown forth 
in the gospel records, which have for their 
genuineness and accuracy such strong 
grounds that to reject them is to reject all 
possibility of historical knowledge and all 
hope of scientific learning. But chiefly dur- 
ing this course I shall consider with you the 
third point, namely, whether Christ estab- 
lished a Church with certain fixed powers 
for the guardianship of His revelation and 
His blessed religion: then we shall study 
what those powers are, and where they 
are to be found. As a beginning of this 
work, which I hope may be full of profit 
for you and others whom you may influ- 
ence, let us think upon the King and His 
Kingdom. 

And first let us dwell for a while upon the 
thought of the King, iChrist Jesus. For 
King He was. The angel, who brought to 
the little maid of Nazareth the tidings of His 
coming birth, had said that He would sit 
upon the throne of David His father and of 



8 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



His kingdom there would be no end. 1 He 
Himself claimed the majesty of a king, 
though not of a king of earth. No king of 
earth was He ; for when, after the multipli- 
cation of the loaves and fishes, His enthusi- 
astic admirers would have taken Him and 
made Him king, He fled away into the moun- 
tain alone. Yet king He was. As He faced 
the might of Rome in the person of Pilate 
He had said: a I am a king; but now my 
kingdom is not from hence." 2 He was the 
king of truth and love and holiness : and it 
was more than the irony of Pilate's beaten 
pride that spoke from the tablet of the cross 
and through the lurid light of angry skies 
showed in letters of red against a white back- 
ground the words, " Jesus of Nazareth, the 
King of the Jews." 3 Yes, He was the 
King of the J ews, the King of the Gentiles, 
the King of the world. 

Gradually and with a view to the ways of 
prudence in the face of relentless foes He 
made His revelation about His Kingdom and 
His own kingly character. Before these 

1 Luke I, 32. 

2 John XVIII, 37, 36. 

3 John XIX, 19. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 9 



foes of His He mingled lights and shadows : 
He showed forth divine truths in such sort 
that the ill-disposed were astounded rather 
than touched, disconcerted and silenced 
rather than swept within the embrace of the 
love they scorned. But if only they would 
not harden their hearts, the light was there 
to lead them on to the docility of disciples. 
To the intimate circle of His own, especially 
the Twelve, He made known more clearly 
the mysteries of the Kingdom and the quali- 
ties of the King. But before both friend 
and foe the light was growing up to the time 
of the heavenly revelation made to Simon 
Peter that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son 
of the living God''. 1 And at the end at the 
official interrogation of the highest religious 
authority of the land and with death leering 
at Him from behind the faces of His hypo- 
critical judges, He spoke to all the world 
without any veiling of the truth His mission 
and His title of Messiah, King of God's 
people. Christ the King! King He was, 
and glorious as man, as the legate of God, as 
more than all this and as very God. 

iMatt. XVI, 16, 17. 



10 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



As man He was the paragon of the race, 
the perfect one of mankind. With the ex- 
ception of the few blinded fools, who have 
tried to foist on the world the senseless myth 
that Christ never existed, most men, even of 
those who refuse to recognize the real reason 
of His supreme excellence, admit Him to be 
the pride of the race, the holiest, most lov- 
able, most sacred of the sons of men. Yes, 
the rationalists and even the scoffers admit 
all this. From Renan to Harnack there is 
an undivided testimony that never did man 
speak as this man spoke, that He preached 
a morality, beside which the systems of all 
the philosophers of the world are weak and 
all but meaningless. He stood for the ma- 
jesty of God as never man stood before : He 
demanded that one should render to Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's, but to God the 
things that are God's, — not to the God of the 
philosophers, but to the God of Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob, to the living God, to the per- 
fect God, the merciful God, the loving God, 
to the God who spurns the foolish service of 
empty formalities and looks to the heart 
within, to the God to whom He taught us to 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 11 

pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven". 1 
Always there was the closest union be- 
tween Himself and the Father in heaven. 
Yet there's a strange difference between 
Christ and the highest of the saints. Be- 
tween God and man, as between the spirit 
and the flesh, there is a lack of proportion, — 
almost a conflict. Judaism had sensed the 
disparity: higher light was only to throw 
out in clearer relief the abyss between the 
divine and the human. It is truly an abyss. 
The higher life of mystics, who are united 
to God through the unrestricted lowering of 
self, commences with the annihilation of the 
human before the majesty of the divine. In 
the presence of God the desire of the heart 
and soul of God's dear ones is for purifica- 
tion and spiritualization : nature must be 
brought to its original nothingness before 
the overpowering splendor of the Eternal. 
But in the Christ we see none of this. He 
is at home, where the highest of the saints 
were abashed: He is on familiar ground, 
where Moses must take off his shoes because 
the ground on which he trod was holy: He 

i Matt. VI, 9. 



12 CHKIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



is at rest, where in later days a Catherine 
of Siena and a Stanislaus Kostka were 
crushed. 

The Christ did not feel the majesty of the 
divine presence less ; but He was at home on 
the sublime heights of union with God. 
Penitent? No: He had no need for pen- 
ance. After the first fast of forty days as 
a preparation for His public mission He does 
no penance up to the crazing chaos of His 
passion. He denounces sin with the full 
consciousness that He is not touched by it. 
He is a stranger to evil, to regret, to remorse. 
Others he exhorts to repentance ; He loves. 
Others he urges to seek; He has attained. 
In Him we find the union of confidence with 
reverence the most profound; of a tender 
familiarity towards God, which needs no 
pardon, with the clearest view of the evil of 
sin and of the demands of divine justice; of 
an unshakable security with the deepest 
sense of what is due to God from man who 
is His creature. 

Man He is, true and complete; man of 
His time and of His race, aglow with pas- 
sionate longings, of which He refuses to have 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 13 



part only in the meanness and littleness. 
In the midst of the wildest attacks and the 
most unsettling enthusiasms He is always 
master of Himself with a transparency of 
soul like that of the limpid stream, which 
flows along in clearness and brightness, mir- 
roring the blue sky above. Even when He 
speaks of things beyond human ken, He is 
always Himself. He may tell of seeing Sa- 
tan fall like lightning from the heavens : He 
is undisturbed. He may grow indignant 
over His foes' blind absorption in the things 
of earth and their worldly views about the 
Kingdom of God : His self-control never fal- 
ters. With the anger of the Lion of the 
tribe of Juda burning in His eyes He may 
drive the buyers and sellers from the temple 
of God : He ever maintains His poise. He 
may reproach Peter for opposing the com- 
ing of sorrow; He may rebuke the "sons of 
thunder" for their indiscreet zeal: He never 
loses Himself. 

Yes, even as man Christ went beyond the 
possibility of anyone ever surpassing Him. 
As I said before, even from those who refuse 
to see in Him anything superhuman, His 



14 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



grandeur of soul has forced expressions of 
regard that declare Him the hero of human- 
ity. He was that to the scoffer Renan : He 
is that to Harnack, the most noted of the 
religious rationalists of today. The Berlin 
professor recognizes in Jesus of Nazareth 
no more than a mere man, but a man who is 
the wonder of the ages. He says of Him: 
"He lived in religion, and it was the breath 
to him in the fear of God ; his whole life, all 
his thoughts and feelings, were absorbed in 
the relation to God. ... He remained kind 
and sympathetic to every living thing. . . . 
He is possessed of a quiet, uniform, collected 
demeanor, with everything directed to one 
goal. . . . Entrusted with the greatest of 
all missions, his eye and ear are open to 
every impression of the life around him, — a 
proof of intense calm and absolute certainty. 
. . . His was an inner freedom and a cheer- 
fulness of soul in the midst of the greatest 
strain, such as no prophet ever possessed be- 
fore him. . . . He who had not where to lay 
his head does not speak like one who has 
broken with everything, or like a heroic pen- 
itent, or like an ecstatic prophet, but like a 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 15 



man who has rest and peace for his soul, and 
is able to give life and strength to others. 
He strikes the mightiest notes ; he offers men 
an inexorable alternative ; he leaves them no 
escape ; and yet the strongest emotion seems 
to come naturally to him, and he expresses 
it as something natural ; he clothes it in the 
language in which a mother speaks to her 
child". 1 Truly indeed might men say of 
Christ, as they did : " Never did man speak 
like this man"; 2 and they might have added : 
" Never did man live as this man lives ; never 
did man love as this man loves". He was 
in all truth the perfection of humanity. 

And He had His mission to mankind ; for 
He was the ambassador of God to men. The 
Father had sent Him, even as He with all 
power given to Him in heaven and on earth 
would send His own to continue His work. 
Yes, He was sent, — and He sought not His 
own will, but the will of Him who sent Him ; 
nay, His very food was to do the will of the 
heavenly Father. He came that men might 
have life and might have it more abund- 

1 Harnack. What is Christianity? pp. 36-38 English trans. 

2 John VII, 46. 



16 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



antly ; He came to save that which was lost, 
to lead back the sheep that had wandered, to 
gather the sheep that were not of the fold, 
but must be brought to the flock, until there 
should be but one fold and one shepherd. 
He was the Good Shepherd. He was the 
gate as well : to pass through Him was salva- 
tion and life ; to seek to enter the fold except 
through Him was an act of brigandage. He 
was to bring holiness and salvation to all by 
the means which He determined : He was to 
continue the application of His redemption 
through the channels which He Himself 
would fix. In a word, He was not merely a 
means of spiritual progress and of religious 
enlightenment; He was the Mediator, one 
and necessary, between God and man; He 
was not only a way to heaven, but the Way : 
He not only led to life ; He was the Life and 
gave it to men. Of a truth He had a mis- 
sion; He was God's legate. Yet great as 
was His mission, confirmed from heaven, He 
was greater than His mission; for He was 
very God. 

The full grandeur of Christ's revelation 
is grasped only by him, who holds to the 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 17 



divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. Even Saba- 
tier (later fallen like so many others from 
the integrity of truth) realized that the ful- 
ness of Christ's mission includes the truth 
of His divinity ; for he said : " Is Jesus only 
a man ? Then, no matter how great we make 
him, Christianity loses its character of abso- 
lute truth and becomes a philosophy. If 
Jesus is the Son of God, Christianity re- 
mains a revelation". 1 

Now the very same unshakable arguments, 
which establish the ambassadorship of Christ 
and which all but the most blinded must ad- 
mit, prove His divinity. By the proofs, to 
which I referred in the beginning, but which 
it is not within the scope of our present pur- 
pose to develop, — among others, by His sanc- 
tity, His doctrine, His miracles one and all, 
but especially by His resurrection from the 
dead, by the moral miracle of the spread of 
His religion, He demonstrated the fact that 
He was what He claimed to be. Now, He 
claimed that He was more than man, more 
than a legate of God; He claimed that He 
was very God. 

i Quoted by Grandmaison, Jesus Christ. 



18 CHBIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Look at the gospel record. The Law was 
the object of a veneration, which in Christ's 
time had verged into a superstition that 
would have subjected even Jahve Himself to 
the Thora. Even in the day of its declara- 
tion to men Moses, the mouthpiece of the 
divine Lawgiver, was subject to the Law. 
But Christ puts Himself above the Law. 1 
He reads the secret thoughts of men ; He for- 
gives their sins by an independent power, 
and proves by miracle His right to this 
power of remission. 2 He claims for Him- 
self preexistence before this mortal life, 3 
preexistence in the unity of God, for He and 
the Father are one. 4 He demands from 
men absolute allegiance to Himself, and a 
love that goes beyond the love for father and 
mother and those nearest and dearest. 5 To 
be persecuted for Him is to be persecuted 
for justice ; to render testimony to Him is to 
render testimony to truth. 6 Blessed the 

iMatt. V, 21, 27, 31, 38. 

2 Matt. IX, 2 ff. 

3 John VIII, 56. 
* John X, 30. 

5 Luke XIV, 26, 27. 
«Matt. V, 11 ff. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 19 



man who shall suffer in His service: woe 
betide him, who shall deny Him ; for he shall 
be rejected by the sovereign and incorrupt- 
ible Judge, who can destroy body and soul 
into hell. 1 The least of His disciples shall 
be greater than the greatest of the Old Dis- 
pensation. 2 He is greater than the Tem- 
ple and the Law of the Sabbath, greater than 
the prophets ; 3 yea, He is the Christ the Son 
of the Living God, 4 the indispensable Me- 
diator between God and man, the Judge who 
will pronounce judgment on all men accord- 
ing to their relations with Himself. 5 He 
makes promises, which God alone could re- 
deem: He demands for Himself what God 
alone has a right to exact. Wise and good 
and lovable and accessible as He is, He is all 
ours in one part of His life, consubstantial 
with our humanity: and on the other hand 
He is all divine, the worthy object of our 
unconditioned homage of adoration, — very 
God. 

1 Matt. X, 22, 28. 

2 Matt. XI, 2-11. 

3 Matt. XII, 6 ; XIII, 16-18. 
* Matt. XVI, 16. 

5 cf . Luke VII, 36 ff. 



20 CHBIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Such is the King. He is all this to us : He 
must be all this to everyone, who will not 
turn his back upon the evidence of His right 
to be what He claimed to be. He is King, 
human and divine, "and of His kingdom 
there shall be no end." 1 

And His Kingdom? "The Kingdom of 
God" or "the Kingdom of heaven" or 
simply "the Kingdom" (they are all the 
same thing) was the great subject of the 
preaching of the Master and of the Apos- 
tles; and because of the ministry of Christ 
that Kingdom was at hand and in the very 
midst of men. The Kingdom? It meant 
the sway and domination of God in the souls 
of men ; but that sway by faith and love and 
grace was wrapped up in the workings of 
the exterior organization which Christ in- 
stituted. The Kingdom of God is practi- 
cally identified with the Church and its ef- 
fects. Christ called His Kingdom His 
Church, which all must hear under penalty 
of being classed with the heathen and the 
publican. 2 He would build His Church 
on Peter, and would give to him the keys 

i Luke I, 33. 2 Matt. XVIII, 17. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 21 



of this Kingdom of heaven in its earthly 
stage. 1 The days would go on amid trials 
and sufferings and triumphs and glories; 
and after all this would come the day, 
of which Paul said: " Afterwards the end: 
when He shall have delivered up the king- 
dom to God and the Father, when He shall 
have brought to naught all principality and 
power and virtue. For He must reign". 2 
That would be the glorious stage of the 
Kingdom of God in the bliss of heaven, the 
transformation of the Church militant into 
the Church triumphant. 

Christ was much more than the founder 
of a school, much more than the exploiter of 
a form of doctrine : He was the inaugurator 
of a kingdom. Not by the wildest flights of 
imagination could the work of a Plato, a 
Pythagoras, a Socrates have been called the 
founding of a kingdom. But Christ's chief 
work, after the accomplishment of the atone- 
ment of His overwhelming redemption, was 
to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, that 
would know no end. 

iMatt. XVI, 18, 19. 
2 I. Cor. XV, 24, 25. 



22 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



6 6 The Kingdom of God" or "the Kingdom 
of heaven" was a notion revealed by God 
and well known to the people with whom 
Christ lived ; it had come down to them from 
ages long past. The covenant of the Most 
High with Abraham and with Israel had 
made this race the chosen people, "the spouse 
of God," and had centred in it the religious 
destiny of the world. In spite of the adul- 
terous infidelities of the chosen spouse God 
would show mercy, and through Israel J ahve 
would reign and His lordship would be ac- 
knowledged by all mankind. By right His 
glory extended as far as His sovereign do- 
minion ; but in fact too the day would come, 
when His majesty would be confessed by all 
the world. Yes, Jahve would have His day; 
and Israel, the instrument of His glorifica- 
tion, would forever be exalted with His 
glory. And the one who was to bring about 
this glory, was the Messiah, the one who was 
to be sent, the anointed of God, the Christ. 
That was the revelation of God. 

The prophets did not see all that was in 
the purpose of God; yet at times they 
glimpsed the purpose of the Eternal. Espe- 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 23 



cially Isaias, as lie foretold the ways of the 
"Servant of Jahve," "the Man of Sorrows," 
was portraying the real outlines of the 
* ' Chosen One of God. ' ' But the people with 
their masters would not see the truth of 
God : they disfigured the correct idea of the 
Kingdom and of the King. According to 
their notion Israel was to sway the world in 
all the might of earthly power, before which 
the lords of the world would crouch and 
cringe in trembling subjection. The glorifi- 
cation of God's people would come with 
worldly magnificence amid portentous man- 
ifestations, bordering upon the weird and 
the theatrical, and the splendors of the re- 
juvenated world would rival the chimerical 
imaginings of the "golden age." 

As He so often declared, Christ came to 
fulfill the promise of the Kingdom of God. 
He taught how false was the carnal, worldly, 
material concept of the Kingdom, enter- 
tained by His contemporaries: but it was 
the expected "Kingdom of heaven" that He 
came to inaugurate. 

In the temptation of Christ at the very 
outset of His public life there was a clear 



24 CHKIST'S MASTEEPIECE 

attempt to draw Him into the egotistic, car- 
nal, marvelous notion of the Kingdom; and 
the attempt was made by the great antag- 
onist, ' ' the enemy," the leader of that other 
kingdom, 1 which was drawn up in battle 
array against the Lord and against His 
Christ. Satan had his kingdom with his 
minions faced against the King of the King- 
dom of God. Not only was the power of 
the Christ over His infernal adversaries a 
mark of the advent of the Kingdom ; 2 but 
the establishment of the Kingdom was like 
a gigantic duel, a frightful conflict to the 
death and without quarter, wherein the 
wicked one would be conquered, his pre- 
tended rights crushed, his power broken and 
himself put to endless rout. "When a 
strong man armed keepeth his court, those 
things are in peace which he possesseth. 
But if a stronger than he come upon him, he 
will take away his armor in which he trusted 
and will distribute the spoils." 3 Satan was 
the strong one ; but Christ was the stronger 

1 Matt. XII, 26. 

2 Luke XI, 20. 

3 Luke XI, 21, 22, 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 25 



one who would overcome him : and the fight 
between the leaders meant the fight between 
their kingdoms and their followers. "He 
that is not with me is against me ; and he that 
gathereth not with me, scatter eth." 1 

As Christ fought the powers of evil, He 
was making provision for the continuance 
of the struggle after He Himself would have 
won the glorious victory on the hillside of 
Calvary, and for the application of the fruits 
of victory after He had gone to the glory of 
His triumph. Gradually and more explicitly 
He taught the true nature of the Kingdom, 
and by His teaching prepared an antidote 
against the poison of false doctrine, whether 
of the Jews who rejected Him and His mis- 
sion or of others in the days to come, who 
would misconceive the character of the work 
that the Father had given Him to do. 

He corrected the false notion of the Jews. 
Far from being magnificent in its advent and 
its manifestation the Kingdom was to begin 
humbly and without drawing to itself the 
notice of the thoughtless and careless: it 
would not make its appeal to the sword or to 

i Luke XI, 23. 



26 CHRIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



prodigies. 1 In its origin it would be like 
the grain of mustard seed, almost imper- 
ceptible in its smallness. Grow indeed it 
would, until it would become a great tree, in 
which the birds of the air might build their 
nests ; but its very growth would be slow and 
gradual; nay, it would be almost as unno- 
ticed as the action of the yeast within a mass 
of flour. 2 In the Kingdom of Christ the 
limitations of race and blood were abolished 
once and forever: His Kingdom was to be 
not merely Jewish ; it was to be world-wide. 

And as for the glory of the King, it would 
not be the glory of this world. His glory 
would be won through the pangs of humilia- 
tion : His triumph would be measured by the 
magnitude of His failure. For not only 
after the resurrection did the Master say to 
His own: " Ought not Christ to have suf- 
fered these things and so to enter into His 
glory?"; 3 but before the end of His mortal 
life He told them over and over again with 
repeated insistence and in spite of their 
failure to understand (or perhaps because 

1 Luke XVII, 20. s Luke XXIV, 26. 

2 Matt. XIII, 31 ff.; Mark IV, 26 ff.; Matt. XIII, 33 ff. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 27 



of it), that the Son of Man would be derided 
and spat upon and scourged and crucified, — 
and on the third day He would rise again. 
His way to glory was the path of ignominy ; 
His throne of everlasting sway would be the 
blood-stained cross of the executed malefac- 
tor. Truly, Christ corrected the false notion 
of the Kingdom, held by the Jews of His 
day, — a Kingdom carnal, worldly, material, 
splendid with the trappings of earthly pomp. 

And the blessed Master also condemned in 
advance the wild vagaries of later years, — 
and first, the fantastic theory of men like 
Loisy. Alas for him ! Once he stood at the 
altar of God and with his priestly lips called 
the Son of God down from heaven : later he 
forgot the splendor of the Savior of the 
world and made of Christ a fool, who lived 
in the midst of chimerical dreams, hesitant, 
bloodless, a gentle maniac who went the way 
of weak humanity, died for a wild vision, was 
cast into the ditch and rotted and was no 
more. According to the wise (?) ones of 
this school of Loisy 's the Kingdom preached 
by the Christ was to come only when the 
impending overturning of earthly things 



28 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



would have introduced Israel's hope and the 
sway of God. These critics, glorying in their 
own enlightenment, tear apart the Christ, as 
they dissect the gospels and reject whatever 
does not accord with their preconceived 
opinions. 

They misrepresent Christ's teaching. 
The Master did indeed tell of the splendid, 
heavenly glory of His Kingdom which was 
unto everlasting and which would reach its 
crowning perfection at the glorious advent 
of His last coming. 1 But He did not say 
when that glorious advent was to have place. 
That time was not to be made known, and 
meanwhile all were to watch and pray and 
be ever ready. 2 Yet before that celestial 
period of His Kingdom there was to be a 
stage adapted to the conditions of this world 
of ours. During this time there were to be 
within that Kingdom the good and the bad, 
the wise and the foolish ; and wheat and the 
cockle were to grow together up to the day 
of consummation. 3 There was to be a pe- 

1 Matt. XXV, 31 ff. 

2 Mark XIII, 32, 33. 
s Matt. XIII, 24-^3. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 29 



riod of slow progress of the gospel's 
spread/ of trials and persecutions, 2 of the 
acquiring of merit, 3 — all of which are in- 
compatible with the notion of a Kingdom 
exclusively heavenly. 

Far from merely preaching a doctrine of 
absolute unconcern for the things of this 
world, Christ, as we shall see more clearly 
later on, made provision for the continuance 
of His work and left behind Him a Church, 
which was His Kingdom, to do until the end 
of time the things that He had begun. In 
a word, His Kingdom was to have its final 
and complete glory only when He would 
come again at the end of time to judge the 
living and the dead; but there was to be a 
preparatory period of whose duration He 
would give no information. Yet for all that 
He did give sufficient indications of its long 
continuance, during which it was to bring 
the souls of men to Himself and to the 
Father. 

And it was to bring them to God not as 

1 Matt. XIII, 32 ff. 

2 Matt. V, 10-12. 

a Matt. XVI, 24-27. 



30 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 

isolated units, but as a collective, united or- 
ganization. His Kingdom was not alto- 
gether spiritual and interior. It was that 
in a supreme degree : the mere conning of the 
words of the Master in His u Sermon on the 
Mount" shows that. There He proclaims 
blessed those whom the world esteems the 
most wretched of men : He urges His follow- 
ers to sublime and sacred holiness, to a per- 
fection like that of the Father who is in 
heaven ; yes, the very prayer of the children 
of the Kingdom begins with the words, " Our 
Father who art in heaven." 1 But for all 
that His Kingdom is a kingdom. It is an 
exterior, organized collection of the sons of 
the Kingdom ; not an intangible, imaginary 
union of souls that have learned to look to 
God with the sentiment of filial piety, yet are 
isolated from one another in their relation 
to the Spirit of God. Later on we shall see 
more distinctly that Christ's Church is a 
true society with everything that goes to 
make up such a social organization. But 
already we can understand from Christ's 
description of His Kingdom that the exterior 

i Matt. VI, 9. 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 31 



and collective element is essential to it. It 
is as external and collective that His King- 
dom is portrayed in many parables, like the 
parable of the field of the father of the fam- 
ily, 1 of the net cast into the sea, 2 of the ten 
virgins going in procession to meet the bride- 
groom, 3 of the vineyard, 4 of the great 
supper. 5 

But men like Harnack, perverting history 
in the interest of so-called higher criticism, 
have dared to mutilate the gospel record and 
to cast out what does not chime in with their 
prejudices against the presence of any super- 
natural element. They extol individual lib- 
erty under the action of God ; but they make 
of that liberty independence from the will 
of Christ. God does in truth inspire the sen- 
timent of filial reverence for the Father of 
all; but He also gives the love for the fra- 
ternal bonds, which unite the friends of the 
Christ into one great Kingdom; He grants 
a humble esteem for authority, which de- 

1 Matt. XIII, 24-30, 36-43. 

2 Matt. XIII, 47-50. 
s Matt. XXV, 1-13. 

4 Matt. XX, 1-15 ; XXI, 33-45. 

5 Matt. XXII, 2-14. 



32 CHRIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



mands submission only to secure the preser- 
vation and unsullied transmission of the eter- 
nal good things acquired by the Christ, as 
against the absolute failure of the individ- 
ualists, who make the whole of Christianity 
consist in what is only a part, though the 
flower of the doctrine of Him who is Master 
and King. 

The constitution of Christ's Kingdom, 
"the Great Charter of the Kingdom," we 
shall consider next time. For the present 
let it have sufficed to have looked in the large 
at the Kingdom of Christ. 

As a conclusion of our reflections let us 
resume what we have seen thus far. Christ 
did not merely preach a doctrine ; He estab- 
lished a kingdom and gave the lie to those 
who still prate about a religion without au- 
thority, or even of a religion without dog- 
mas. It is very fashionable to dilate upon 
such generalities, and against the true ac- 
count of the gospels to describe what is sup- 
posed to be the real history of the develop- 
ment of Christianity into a Church beyond 
and against the will and intention of Christ 
Himself. This fashion permeates the writ- 



THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM 33 



ings and sermons of many who call them- 
selves ministers of Christ's gospel; it finds 
its way into much popular literature. But 
whilst entertaining itself and its adherents 
by its intellectual gymnastics, it violates the 
principles of true science and holds at naught 
the lessons of real history. For Christ is 
not only a teacher: He is a King and He 
established His Kingdom. That Kingdom 
means the sway of God over the souls of 
men, not indeed in isolated individualism, 
but in the exterior and collective union 
which brings about holiness through means 
left by the King. This sway has its period 
of uncertain, though lengthy duration here 
below, and shall have its glorious and end- 
less consummation, when the Lord shall 
have come again at the close of time and 
shall have ended forever the conflict between 
Himself and the " prince of this world," 1 
between "the gates of hell" and His own 
Kingdom from which the smallest atom of 
evil shall have been purged away. 

Let us reverence, — aye, let us adore the 
King. Let us take Him at His own valua- 

Uohn XII, 31. 



34 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



tion, not according to the estimation of those 
who are satisfied with a sterile admiration, 
which refuses to bow down before His 
claims. Let us open our hearts to His light 
and His love, that He may keep us near Him 
in His Kingdom here and hereafter ; and let 
us pray for all mankind with the sweet words 
taught us by the King, "Thy Kingdom 
come ! ' ' 



LECTURE II 



THE GREAT CHARTER OF THE KINGDOM 

Christ's words to the Twelve. Their antecedents: 
their vocation. Attitude of "Higher Critics." 
Teaching power. Authoritative. Infallible. 
Faith demanded by Christ : exacted by Apostles. 
Practical application. Sanctifying power. In- 
direct. Direct. Great gift of sacramental sys- 
tem. Power of jurisdiction. Flows from Char- 
ter. Explicit declaration of Christ. The Church 
a society. Founded by Christ. Not an unfore- 
seen development. 

Even a schoolboy or a schoolgirl knows 
of that incident which looms big in English 
history as the foundation of the most highly 
prized liberties of the nation, — the wrest- 
ing of the Magna Charta from the rapacious 
and wily King John. In the beginning of 
the thirteenth century, in 1215, the barons 
of the land with Cardinal Stephen Langton 
at their head met their king on the plains of 
Runnymede and forced him to grant them 
the Great Charter, which for seven hundred 
years has been the basis of English consti- 

35 



36 CHKIST'S MASTERPIECE 



tutional liberty. It has also been at the root 
of the freedom which we Americans value 
so highly ; for it is the anticipation and the 
groundwork of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence and of the primary principles of the 
Constitution of our country. Rightly, then, 
do we value it above the wealth of earth and 
the splendor of pomp and power: quite 
properly would we stake much upon the de- 
fense of the rights which are guaranteed by 
its provisions. It is the palladium of our 
liberty and the lasting glory of home and 
country. 

But there is another Great Charter, which 
is far more valuable than even the great 
charter of our civic liberties. This is the 
Great Charter of the Kingdom of Christ. 
This charter was not wrested from an un- 
willing monarch : it was granted out of the 
depths of undying and unfathomable love 
by the King of wiiose Kingdom there shall 
be no end. On the mountain of Galilee this 
charter was given by the Master to His 
chosen ones, and contains the constitution of 
His Kingdom upon earth, His blessed 
Church, which was to bring men from the 



THE GEEAT CHAETEE 37 



darkness to the light, from misery to hap- 
piness, from slavery to the true freedom of 
the children of God. 

In our last lecture we considered the char- 
acter of Christ the King, — the sacredness of 
the transcendent sublimity of Christ the 
man, the hallowed authority of Christ the 
legate and ambassador of God, the adorable 
majesty of Christ the Son of God. It was 
not necessary for us to dwell at any great 
length and in minute particularity upon the 
proofs of all this sacred dignity ; because for 
us it was and is a matter of faith divine, held 
with the unshaken and unshakable certainty 
due to divine revelation. Neither was it 
then our purpose to examine at length the 
reasons which call for this submission of 
our minds in the obedience of faith. As 
Christians we took these reasons as already 
established and reserved their special con- 
sideration for another time. Still we did 
look upon them sufficiently, and at the same 
time we examined the teaching of the Master 
with regard to His Kingdom in its larger 
outlines. 

We saw that He corrected the carnal, ma- 



38 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



terial notion of the Jews, who hoped for a 
Messiah, who with theatrical splendor of 
earthly pomp would raise Israel to the 
heights of political grandeur. We heark- 
ened to Him, as He showed us the falseness 
of the wild vagaries of those who, making 
of Him a madman and a fool, hold that He 
dreamed of an unfulfilled majesty of divine 
sway soon to be accomplished in the uni- 
versal upheaval of existing conditions ; that 
He looked for the immediate advent of the 
power of God to crush the foes of His cause, 
and to usher in the celestial blessedness of 
a kingdom which was to have no part in 
the things of earth or with the living 
sons of men; that He died deceived, if 
not a deceiver, and went the way of 
all flesh into the corruption of unbroken 
death. 

We learned from His holy lips the hollow- 
ness of the claims of those erring ones, who 
declare that He never dreamed of founding 
a Church which would be His Kingdom; 
that He did no more than bring before men 
the realization of their sonship to God ; that 
He taught a morality without dogma; and 



THE GREAT CHASTER 39 



that the Church arose as the result of natural 
evolution from the impulse given by Him to 
the souls of men, aided by Greek philosophy 
and Roman political power. From the 
King we learned that His Kingdom was 
really and truly a kingdom ; that it was not 
merely the sway of God in the individual 
soul, but that it had an exterior element of 
collective organization, whereby its chil- 
dren are bound to one another and to God 
and are brought to holiness by the means 
fixed by the King; that His Kingdom was 
to have a preparatory stage of trial and com- 
bat before the arrival of the glorious period 
of consummation in the mansions of the 
Father. 

Let us now study more in detail the con- 
stitution of this Kingdom : especially let us 
try to fathom the depths of the Great 
Charter of the Kingdom, whereby Christ 
gave to His chosen ones the mission and com- 
mission to carry on His work for the ever- 
lasting welfare of His loved ones. 

The forty days of sweet communion of 
the risen Lord with His dear ones were 
drawing to a close. He had spoken to them 



40 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of the Kingdom of Cod; He had completed 
His instructions to them; He had blessed 
them with mighty powers for the upbuild- 
ing of the Kingdom; and soon He was to 
leave them in His bodily presence and as- 
cend to the glory of the Father. And now 
on the mountain in Galilee that He "had 
appointed to them" He stood in the midst 
of the Apostles and spoke the words which 
are the Great Charter of Christianity. 
For He said : "All power is given to me in 
heaven and in earth: going therefore teach 
ye all nations," (or, as the older Greek ver- 
sion of St. Matthew's original gospel has it, 
"make disciples of all nations"), "baptizing 
them in the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you : and behold I am with you all 
days even to the consummation of the 
world." 1 

These were glorious words, and they are 
still ringing down the ages, still justifying 
the labors and sacrifices and tears and blood 
of the lovers of the Master, who are spend- 

i Matt. XXVIII, 18-20. 



THE GEEAT CHASTER 41 



ing all their efforts for the spread of His 
Church, while on their lips and in their 
hearts is the prayer which is the battle-cry 
of the army of the King, "Thy Kingdom 
come!" It was the King who spoke, He to 
whom all power was given in heaven and 
in earth; it was the blessed Christ, whom 
we have already considered as the paragon 
of mankind, the legate and ambassador of 
God, with the universal approbation of God 
upon His every word and act, — yes, the 
Christ who is very God Himself. And it 
was in the consciousness of supreme and all 
embracing power that He spoke to His own 
and sent them upon their mission, partakers 
of the rights that are His own. "All power 
is given to me. . . . Going therefore teach 
ye all nations." Were men under obliga- 
tion to hearken to the words of the Master 
and to heed them? Then were they bound 
to do the same to the message of these chosen 
ones. 

For chosen ones they were. It was after 
a night spent in the prayer of God that the 
Christ had called His disciples around Him 
and had chosen from their number twelve 



42 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



whom He called Apostles, 1 — Simon and 
James and John and the rest, who would 
henceforth form a body apart from all oth- 
ers by their nearness to Him, by their share 
in His ministry, by the intimate relations 
between themselves and Him. 

During the three years of the public min- 
istry of love and mercy Christ prepared 
them by word and example for the work 
which was to be theirs. He sent them upon 
preparatory missionary excursions to 
preach the Kingdom of Grod with the power 
of miracles to confirm the word they spoke. 2 
He promised them wonderful gifts for what 
was ahead. And after the awful cataclysm 
of the passion He had come to them in the 
glory of His risen life, had established their 
faith upon an unshakable foundation, and 
solaced them in their abandonment. He 
had made them the associates of His own 
mission; for on the evening of the first 
Easter day He had said to them: "As the 
Father hath sent me, I also send you." 3 

1 Luke VI, 12-16. 

2 Luke IX, 1, 2. 
s John XX, 21. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 43 



And now after all this He gave them their 
mission and commission to all the world, be- 
fore which they were to take His place. 

The words of the King are clear and 
cogent as He speaks the Great Charter of 
the Kingdom: " Going therefore teach ye 
all nations" and the rest. So manifest is 
their content that it need hardly surprise 
us that those, who will not heed, should feel 
that they must call in question the fact that 
Christ uttered them. And so indeed we find 
the rationalists and some of the " higher 
critics" denying their place in the gospel 
and the reality of their utterance by Christ. 
God help them ! I do not intend to go into 
this matter now: it is beyond the scope of 
our present considerations. Suffice it to say 
on the one hand that there is not a single 
critical reason of any sound value which 
would exclude the words in question from 
the gospel record, and to put them aside 
would be to reject the whole of the gospel 
narrative, and by consequence all historical 
knowledge about events of days gone by; 
and on the other, that to deny the fact of 
their utterance by Christ for the reasons 



44 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



which motive the denial of Liberals and 
Modernists is to put away the possibility 
of the supernatural, to close the gates to 
God's redemption of a fallen race, and to 
sink down into the bottomless abyss of ever- 
lasting despair. 

To escape the force of the Great Charter 
either one must deny the correctness of the 
record, — and that is absolutely unscientific ; 
or one must deny the character of the 
King, — and for Christians that is blasphe- 
mous, and for others it is the closing of the 
eyes of the soul to the light which streams 
forth from Him, who is the very Light of 
the world. 

To the Apostles, then, who constituted a 
distinct body (as is evident from the name, 
Apostle, and the number, the Twelve), 
Christ gave a threefold power, and by the 
very fact was the author of a real society 
or organized social body with definite func- 
tions and fixed rights and duties. Let us 
look at this threefold power. 

The first power was the teaching power. 
Christ Himself was a teacher. He was the 
great prophet who taught the way of God 



THE GREAT CHARTER 45 



in truth; and as the Father had sent Him, 
He sent His Apostles to make disciples of 
all the children of men, to teach all things 
whatsoever He had commanded. This 
teaching power, which was given to them, 
was one which bore with it the sanction of 
God and the obligation of submitting to it 
in absolute and irrevocable assent. This we 
might have inferred from the fact that 
Christ sent the Apostles with all the power 
given to Him in heaven and in earth. But 
besides this correct inference we have the 
clear words in which He Himself pointed 
out the obligatory character of the teaching 
of the Twelve. For, according to the ac- 
count of St. Mark, Christ said to His Apos- 
tles : ' ' Preach the gospel to every creature. 
He who believeth" (with a practical faith 
which includes the other things prescribed) , 
"he who believeth and is baptized, shall be 
saved: he who believeth not, shall be con- 
demned." 1 

So, it was not an empty office of teaching, 
to which men might or might not listen ac- 
cording to their own sweet whim; it was 

iMark XVI, 15, 16. 



46 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



obligatory. Men would be acting within 
their rights when they demanded the creden- 
tials of the Christian teachers. But when 
these credentials had been put before them 
and had been recognized as valid, then to be- 
lieve or not to believe was no longer a thing 
dependent upon their own good-pleasure : it 
was a duty which bore the sanction of eternal 
life or eternal damnation. 

Such too was the Apostles' idea with re- 
spect to the power conferred upon them by 
the Master. They looked upon it as their 
chief work to teach mankind by the preach- 
ing of the gospel: they demanded "the obe- 
dience of faith" 1 not to one or another 
point of their heaven-delivered message, but 
to all that Christ had committed to them. 
After recording the words of their sending, 
St. Mark says: "But they going forth 
preached everywhere, the Lord working 
withal." 2 And in the Acts of the Apostles 
St. Luke tells us that " every day they 
ceased not in the temple and from house to 
house to teach and preach Jesus Christ. 3 



iRom. I, 5. 

2 Mark. XVI, 20. 



3 Acts V, 42. 



THE GEEAT CHAETEE 47 



Listen too to the words of St. Paul: "Let 
a man so account of us as the ministers of 
Christ": 1 "woe is unto me if I preach not 
the gospel": 2 "we have received . . . 
apostleship for obedience to the faith in all 
nations." 3 Note that Paul demanded en- 
tire intellectual submission in obedience to 
the word of God authoritatively pro- 
claimed : 6 ' Therefore we also give thanks to 
God without ceasing, because that when you 
had received of us the word of the hearing 
of God" (the word which you heard from 
God through us), "you received it not as 
the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the 
word of God." 4 

In view of this commission of the Christ 
and this conduct of the Apostles what must 
an unprejudiced mind think of the maun- 
derings of those who prate about the liberty 
of the human intellect, — a liberty which to 
them means independence and licensed 
what of the folly of indiff erentists who prat- 
tle about one religion being as good as an- 

1 1. Cor. IV, 1. 
2 1. Cor. IX, 16. 
3 Rom. I, 5. 
4 1. Thess. II, 13. 



48 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



other? what about those who compromise 
"the deposit of faith" by their misguided 
charity of toleration % But, it may be said, 
the Church of Christ must be tolerant. 
Yes, but as the Master was tolerant, as the 
Apostles were tolerant. She must show tol- 
eration for the weakness of her erring chil- 
dren and for the cowardice of her stumbling 
little ones; but she cannot show toleration 
for deliberate infidelity to Christ's word, 
since that would be to deny His wisdom or 
His sovereignty ; she cannot make dickering 
compromises with regard to the treasure of 
truth, which she has been appointed to 
guard. She must speak with unmistakable 
voice, strong with the authority given to her 
by the King of truth, and she must proclaim 
His gospel to all nations and to every crea- 
ture. 

What is more, that voice of hers is not only 
authoritative ; it is infallible. This does not 
mean that she will be preserved from all sin ; 
but it does mean that in the exercise of her 
mission of teaching she will be guarded from 
the possibility of error. It does not mean 
that she will forever be the recipient of new 



THE GREAT CHARTER 49 



revelations; but it does mean that she will 
keep unsullied what has been committed to 
her care. It does not mean that the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit of God will make her 
words the very words of God; but it does 
mean that in her human speech she will 
never contradict the wisdom from on high. 

This infallibility, this freedom from the 
possibility of error in the accomplishment of 
the mission given to the Twelve is based 
upon the promises of Christ the King: the 
words of the Great Charter hold the pledge. 
" Going therefore teach ye all nations . . . 
and behold I am with you all days even to 
the consummation of the world." This is 
the promise; and it is the promise of God 
Himself. We Christians can see this read- 
ily enough, since to us Christ the King is 
very God. But even for those who do not 
yet recognize the divinity of the Master, 
these words are the words of one who is at 
least the legate of God with universal divine 
approbation upon His words and deeds ; and 
hence at least indirectly and mediately these 
words hold the promise of God, who prom- 
ises what Christ promises. 



50 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Now the expression, "I am with you," 
when spoken by God, bears a very definite 
meaning, which was well understood by the 
Apostles; for in the language of Scripture 
these words always mean that God will bring 
to a successful issue the thing of which there 
is question, when He speaks the words, "I 
am with you." It will not be necessary and 
it would take too long to enlarge upon this 
truth ; yet it is unquestionably a truth. If 
God promises to be with one in war, victory 
is assured by the divine pledge: if God 
promises to be with one in an errand of 
prophetic message, the success of the em- 
bassy is secured. And so when God prom- 
ises to be with the Twelve in their work of 
teaching to all mankind the truths com- 
mitted to them by the Christ, the triumphant 
certainty of that teaching is so solid that 
there can be no question of defection. The 
power of God will be ever near to supple- 
ment the feebleness of human instruments 
in the teaching of truth, and the gate 
whereby error might enter is closed forever. 

Before the glorious day of mission from 
the mountain in Galilee the Master had 



THE GREAT CHARTER 51 



promised that the Spirit of God would be 
with His Apostles in the prosecution of their 
work. "The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name, He 
will teach you all things, and will bring all 
things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have 
said to you." 1 "It is expedient for you 
that I go : for if I go not, the Paraclete will 
not come to you: but if I go, I will send 
Him to you. . . . But when He, the Spirit 
of truth is come, He will teach you all 
truth." 2 And with this efficacious assist- 
ance of the divine Spirit of truth it could 
and can never be that error should be 
coupled. 

Christ might, indeed, have made many 
different provisions for the safeguard of 
His revelation. He might have given in- 
fallible individual guidance to each sepa- 
rate soul, as some of our separated brethren 
mistakenly maintain that He does: from 
time to time as the years went by He might 
have sent prophets to call back the wander- 
ers to the truth which they had lost or aban- 

iJohn XIV, 26. 
2 John XVI, 7, 13. 



52 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



doned, as He did for the Jews. He might 
have done this ; but He did not. That is not 
what He promised, and history has shown 
that that is not what He has done. He ap- 
pointed His Apostles as authoritative teach- 
ers and He gave to them the prerogative of 
infallibility. And, with all humble rever- 
ence be it said, Christ had to give such an 
infallible voice in view of what He de- 
manded of mankind with respect to the 
teaching of the Apostolic College. For un- 
der pain of eternal damnation He demanded 
faith, — the absolute, unrestricted, irref orm- 
able assent of the mind to His revelation as 
preached by the Twelve. 

And this unconditional assent, which was 
to be without reservation, the Apostles de- 
manded from men. They might all have 
said what Paul did say to the Galatians: 
' ' Though we or an angel from heaven preach 
a gospel to you besides that which we have 
preached to you, let him be anathema. ' ' 1 
There was to be no possibility for correction, 
because there was to be no possibility of a 
mistake. 

i Gal. I, 8. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 53 



Now, not even God Himself could exact 
such an absolute assent from man and un- 
der such a terrible sanction, unless man was 
assured of the impossibility of error under 
such guidance. Otherwise God's wisdom 
and absolute holiness would be violated. 
For then, although God made man's mind 
for truth, man would be bound to bow down 
his intellect in absolute assent where pos- 
sibly error might lurk, and, should the as- 
sent happen to have been given to falsehood, 
the mind would forever be held back from 
truth and chained to error by the irrevocable 
character of the act demanded of it ; and this 
would be subversive of the wisdom and the 
rectitude of the Most High. Since, then, it 
was precisely this irrevocable and absolute 
assent that Christ demanded from men with 
regard to the teaching of the Apostles, and 
since He. did not guarantee the individual 
infallibility of each of the faithful, He could 
not have done otherwise than bestow on His 
authorized teachers the gift of entire free- 
dom from error in the accomplishment of 
the mission entrusted to them. 

And right here, without entering upon a 



54 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



path of controversy, which in the spirit of 
charity it will be well to postpone until it 
cannot be avoided, we may well desire that 
this unshakable truth of the infallibility of 
the teaching power of Christ's Church 
should be taken to heart by all, as they 
study Christ's revelation about that Church. 
The rule of faith for His followers is the 
living voice of the Apostles; it is not the 
Holy Scripture, though that Scripture is 
sacred with the holiness of God's own word. 
There was no Scripture of the New Testa- 
ment when the Apostles began to carry out 
the injunction of the Master for the propa- 
gation of the " gospel of the Kingdom." 
Christ Himself did not write ; He taught by 
preaching : and His command to the Twelve 
was not 6 ' Going therefore write and dis- 
tribute the word," but 6 6 Going therefore 
teach ye all nations," " preach the gospel to 
every creature." 

The Apostles fulfilled the mandate of 
Christ. All of them fulfilled it ; yet not one 
half of the Apostolic College left writings 
which are part of Holy Scripture; and all 
of them looked upon the preaching of the 



THE GREAT CHARTER 55 



word, not its writing, as the great work for 
which they were commissioned. Sacred 
and worthy of love and veneration as is the 
Holy Book, it is not absolutely necessary 
for the preservation of revealed truth. 
Even had it never existed; even though by 
an impossibility it should perish, we should 
lose none of God's revelation, so long as the 
living voice of the teaching-body established 
by Christ was true to its mission: whereas 
on the other hand without this teaching- 
body even the sanctity of Scripture would 
not be sufficient to preserve unsullied 
through the ages the revelation of Christ 
the King. 

Again, if Christ's Church is to last for- 
ever with the constitution that He gave it 
unaltered to the end (and that it is so to 
last we shall consider in the next lecture, as 
we dwell on "Some Prerogatives of the 
Kingdom"), the church which today holds 
that it is His true Church, must lay claim 
to definitive, authoritative, infallible pro- 
nouncement upon His revelation. -It does 
not, of course, follow that a church is 
Christ's true Church just because it claims 



56 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



to have this power; but it does follow from 
the constitution of Christ's Church that a 
church which does not lay claim to such a 
prerogative, which does not dare to give a 
final and irreformable decision on matters 
touching divine revelation, is not and can- 
not be that true Church. For it would have 
been unfaithful to its destiny ; it would have 
thrown away its Great Charter; it would 
have spurned the high glory of the Twelve ; 
it would have ceased to be, even if it ever had 
been, the Church of Christ. 

It is the teaching power which stands 
forth prominently in the Great Charter ; but 
it is not the only power therein contained: 
there is the power of sanctifying by religious 
rites and there is the power of spiritual jur- 
isdiction. These we must consider briefly; 
and first the power of sanctifying. Christ 
had come that men " might have life and 
might have it more abundantly"; 1 He had 
come "to save that which was lost," 2 to 
bring men to holiness here and finally to 
perfected sanctity in the everlasting joy of 

iJohn X, 10. 

2 Matt. XVIII, 11. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 57 

His Father's home. His hallowed doctrine, 
safeguarded by the teaching power of His 
Church, was to help to this sanctification ; 
nay, He had said, "This is eternal life that 
they know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 1 But 
in His great and overwhelming love for men 
He instituted sacred external rites, which 
not only tended indirectly to holiness of 
soul, but wrought this sanctification imme- 
diately and directly: and these sacred rites 
too He placed in the hands of the Twelve. 
In the words spoken on the mountain in 
Galilee He referred to but one of these rites, 
— to that one which is the door to the house- 
hold of the family of God, the sacred initia- 
tion into the Kingdom, the holy sacrament 
of baptism. It was, and the Apostles later 
showed how they understood the Master, — 
it was His own baptism in the name of the 
triune God, distinct from the ablutions of 
the J ews and from the baptism of John the 
Baptist. It was the condition for disciple- 
ship and necessary for life everlasting. It 
was the baptism of which He said, "Unless a 

Uohn XVII, 3. 



58 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



man be born again of water and the Holy 
Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of 
God" 1 here or hereafter. 

The records of the New Testament tell of 
other rites of the same sacred character, as, 
for instance, of the "imposition of hands" 2 
for the giving of the Holy Ghost, of the 
"breaking of bread" 3 in the Eucharistic 
banquet, of the judicial power of the for- 
giveness of sins. 4 We need not enter here 
upon a lengthy consideration of these rites, 
which are the sacraments of the Church of 
Christ, because it is not necessary for the 
object now before us. In the study of the 
sacramental system it is seen from Scripture 
and tradition that the sacraments are seven 
in number, each and all instituted by Christ 
for the salvation of the souls of men and for 
help in their every need from the cradle to 
the grave. 

It is a wondrous gift of love from God to 
man, is this sacramental system. By it man 
enters into supernatural life, regenerated in 

1 John III, 5. 

2 Acts VIII, 14-19; XIX, 1-6. 

3 Acts II, 42 cf. I. Cor. X, 16. 
* John XX, 22, 23. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 59 



God : he is sealed unto the conflict for truth 
and holiness : he is raised up again, if he has 
fallen in the fight: he is fed with "the corn 
of the elect and the wine springing forth 
virgins": 1 he is prepared for the last strug- 
gle against the foe whose hatred is without 
end and without truce : he is provided with 
the ministers of his God-given religion : he 
receives the benediction and the consecra- 
tion of heaven upon his love and the help 
divine to raise up unto the Lord children, 
who are to be the sons and daughters of 
God. Truly, we who are of the dear old 
Church can never thank God enough for this 
gift which is ours: we can never pray 
enough, until those who have it not are 
blessed with this seven-fold channel of 
celestial grace. 

What in heaven's name would we do with- 
out these means of strength supernal^ 
More especially, what would we do without 
the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, where 
our Savior Himself is really present to 
solace, to support, and to come into our 
hearts and make us stronger than our weak- 

i Zach. IX, 17. 



60 CHKIST'S MASTEBPIECE 



ness % Oh, let us use these sacraments with 
eager desire and whole-hearted love, and let 
us pray that the Kingdom of God may come 
to those who are outside, and who even 
though guiltless in their ignorance are de- 
prived of the overflowing riches of the love 
of Christ. 

This ministerial power, then, for the sanc- 
tifying of the souls of men by the religious 
rites instituted by the Christ is the second 
power committed to the Apostolic College 
and contained in the Great Charter of Chris- 
tian freedom and holiness. And the third 
power is that of spiritual jurisdiction, the 
power of ruling in the realm of the soul. 

The Apostles had the duty of teaching 
all nations, baptizing them and teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever Christ 
had commanded: and together with this 
duty they had the right of demanding that 
all men submit themselves to their teaching 
and receive the sacred rite of baptism unto 
initiation into life divine. Those who had 
complied with their obligation of hearing 
the Apostles as they would have heard 
Christ Himself and who had received 



THE GREAT CHARTER 61 



Christian baptism, by the very fact were 
subject to Apostolic authority and were 
bound to render obedience in all things, 
which pertained to leading lives in accord- 
ance with the teachings of the Master. The 
Apostles' office was not merely an office of 
preaching, authorized indeed, but without 
any obligation on the part of the hearers. 
This false position of some erring heretics 
has already been disproved by the words of 
Christ, who taught that men were bound to 
hear. Furthermore, in addition to their au- 
thoritative and obligatory proposition of 
Christ's revelation it was part of the Apos- 
tolic office to safeguard this teaching by 
laws, enforced by such penalties as were 
fitted to the attainment of the end proposed. 
They were the approved Christian teach- 
ers; and by consequence they were to rule 
the children of the Kingdom with the au- 
thority of the King, who had sent them as 
He had been sent by the Father with all 
power given to Him in heaven and in earth. 

During the days of the public ministry 
Christ had promised to the chosen Twelve 
this jurisdiction in the things of the soul. 



62 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



After speaking of the necessity of humility 
for fruitful participation in the Kingdom 
and of the value of the souls of those who 
were to be brought to God, the Master spoke 
of fraternal correction in the spirit of char- 
ity. Prom this He passed on to the authori- 
tative process against the stubborn, who 
were to be treated with summary severity; 
and He gave the reason for the hardness of 
punishment against the recalcitrant. "But 
if thy brother offend against thee, go and 
rebuke him between thee and him alone; 
. . . and if he will not hear thee, take with 
thee one or two more, that in the mouth of 
two or three witnesses every word may 
stand. And if he will not hear them, tell 
the Church: and if he will not hear the 
Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and 
the publican," 1 let him be cut off from as- 
sociation with the elect of God. And why 
this severe penalty? Because the offender 
would not "hear the Church," would not 
obey the Church ; because of persistent dis- 
obedience to the power of the Apostles. 
^Yes, it was disobedience against constituted 

iMatt. XVIII, 15-17. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 63 



authoritative jurisdiction. "Amen, I say 
to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon 
earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and 
whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall 
be loosed also in heaven." 1 Thus did 
Christ promise to them the power of bind- 
ing and loosing, the power of imposing a 
bond or taking it away, — evidently not the 
physical bond of chains of iron, but the 
moral bond of obligation, which holds the 
will of man under the sway of jurisdictional 
power. 

This power of governing the children of 
the Kingdom the Apostles exercised with 
the full consciousness of the reality of their 
authority. They made laws; they judged 
the transgressors of these laws ; they threat- 
ened and inflicted penalties in the case of 
those who violated their mandates. 

So, these are the contents of the Great 
Charter: these are the three powers com- 
mitted by the King to the Kingdom which is 
His Church. He determined those who 
ought to be the members of His Church, — 
all mankind: He determined those who 

iMatt. XVIII, 18. 



64 CHKIST'S MASTERPIECE 



would actually be members of His Church 
and remain such, — those who after baptism 
guarded the subjection to the threefold 
Apostolic power : He determined the end and 
the manner in which that end was to be at- 
tained : He gave the authority which was to 
conserve the Church. And therefore He 
was the author of His Church, which He 
founded in the form of an organized so- 
ciety. Facts: all this is shown by facts. 
In view of these facts how shallow the sys- 
tem, how hollow the claims of rationalists 
like Harnack, Loisy and their like, who 
maintain that the Christian Church grew up 
as something which more or less naturally 
resulted from the work of Christ, but quite 
beyond, and even against His intention! 
We have seen how He did intend to found, 
and how He actually founded His Kingdom, 
which is His Church, as a true external, 
collective, social organization, independent 
of earthly power, — a real, perfect society. 

Yet men like those to whom I have re- 
ferred make Paul, and not Christ, the real 
author of the Christian Church, altogether 
against the intention and will of the Master. 



THE GREAT CHARTER 65 



They extol Paul as the wonder of the ages, 
because he dared to cast aside what they 
call "the husk" 1 of the teaching of Jesus, 
who according to them had never dreamed of 
a universal Kingdom, and because he was 
great enough to make of Christianity a 
world-religion. They praise the other 
Apostles because ' 6 after a bitter struggle 
they associated themselves with Paul's prin- 
ciples. ' ' 2 The honeyed sweetness of praise 
like this is full of the venomous bitterness of 
black poison ; for the Apostles are lauded for 
having consciously taken steps, which were 
neither foreseen nor intended by Him from 
whom they held their commission. Such an 
attitude of mind, such a manner of conduct 
could be understood in the Apostles, if they 
had been rationalists who looked on Christ 
as a poor deluded man: it is inconceivable 
in the face of concrete fact ; for the Apostles 
most certainly preached the Christ as very 
God and carried out to their dying breath 
the injunction laid on them by Him. 

In our following lecture we shall con- 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 182 English trans. 

2 id. ib. 



66 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



sider "Some Prerogatives of the King- 
dom," — among others, its perpetual con- 
tinuance to the end of time and its necessity 
for all men : the essential constitution of the 
Church as set forth in the Great Charter is 
now clear. As we recognize the littleness 
of our own feeble minds in grappling with 
great truths of eternal import; as we look 
down the paths of history and see the aber- 
rations of even mighty intellects, when they 
spurned the help of God, we may well thank 
the King of truth for giving to His Church 
the power of authoritative and infallible 
promulgation of His sacred words of good- 
tidings. As we realize our colossal weak- 
ness in the face of the trials of life and be- 
fore our enemies, who are "the spirits of 
wickedness in the high places," 1 we may 
well pour forth the expression of loving and 
humble gratitude for Christ's gift of the 
power of sanctification by ministerial rites, 
which keep us close to the divine all through 
the days of our sojourning and lead us on in 
safety to our heavenly home. And as we 
come to see with deeper insight the dire 



i Ephes. VI, 12. 



THE GEEAT CHAETEE 67 



catastrophes which owe their birth to the 
uncurbed license of false independence, we 
may well hold fast to our heart of hearts 
our loyal submission to the sacred power of 
jurisdiction, with which the Master blessed 
the Twelve. That power is to rule our souls 
in the ways of God, lest we depart from this 
path of peace and wander away into the 
darkness, where death and despair are lurk- 
ing to overwhelm the unwary. Yes, as we 
prize the glorious heritage of the freedom 
of the children of God, let us reverence and 
love the King for His gift of the Great 
Charter, and by our humble docility, our 
appreciative love, our unswerving obedience 
let us lead lives worthy of the children of the 
Kingdom. 



LECTUEE III 



SOME PREROGATIVES OF THE KINGDOM 

Eeview. Perpetuity. Double aspect of Apostles' po- 
sition. Meaning of indefectibility. Adversaries. 
Christ's will: parables: promise to Peter: to 
the Twelve. One only Church. Proof. Branch 
theory. Discussion. Necessity. Antecedent 
probability. Christ's formal declaration. Not 
only necessary by command: a means to end. 
Can it be supplied ? Toleration true and false. 

We have considered the Great Charter of 
Christ's Kingdom, and have studied the es- 
sential constitution of the Church, which 
the Master founded for the preservation and 
propagation of His revealed religion. We 
have seen that by the will of Christ, and not 
as the result of natural evolution of a move- 
ment, which was inaugurated by Him but 
developed beyond and against His inten- 
tions, there was founded an organized social 
body with definite powers and functions. 
These powers are all included in the Mas- 
ter's words of mission, which form the 
Magna Charta of Christian^ ; and they are 

68 



SOME PREROGATIVES 69 



three in number. First, there is the power 
of teaching with authority the gospel of 
Christ to all mankind, in such, sort that 
everyone is bound under the sanction of sal- 
vation or damnation to hearken to the words 
of the accredited witnesses. By the power 
of God the definitive pronouncements of the 
Apostolic College in matters of divine rev- 
elation are preserved from the possibility 
of error through the gift of infallibility. 
Secondly, the Apostles received the power of 
ministering to the salvation of the souls of 
men through the religious rites, which Christ 
instituted to apply to men the fruits of His 
superabundant redemption. And thirdly, 
the Twelve were gifted with the power of 
jurisdictional sway over the souls of men 
to keep mankind from the wanderings of 
human pride and human weakness in the 
pathway of faith and morals. 

Possessing these powers from the King, 
the Apostolic Body constitutes the nobler 
part of the society, founded by Christ for 
the good of the children of men : these three 
rights, held by them, are the essentials in the 
constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ. 



70 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



However, in order to come to a clearer and 
more comprehensive idea of the Kingdom of 
the King, we must go a step farther and con- 
sider "Some Prerogatives of the King- 
dom,'' — some of the special qualifications 
affecting the gift of the threefold power. 
These prerogatives, and let me state them at 
once for the sake of clearness, are: per- 
petuity or unfailing continuance, unicity or 
the exclusion of other churches than the one 
Church of Christ from the institution of 
God, and the necessity of this Church for all 
mankind in order to come to the eternal des- 
tiny of unmeasured joy in the home of the 
Father. 

And first we must consider the unbroken, 
continued permanence of the Church of the 
Master. From the very outset let us re- 
member that we are not to exercise our im- 
aginative ingenuity in conjuring up all the 
possible ways in which Christ might have 
proceeded in the accomplishment of the pur- 
pose of His love for men. As we have seen 
before, He might have provided many ways 
for the safeguard of His revelation and re- 



SOME PKEROGATIVES 71 



ligion ; but He chose one way, — and that way- 
consisted in the establishment of an organ- 
ized body with the definite powers, which 
we have considered. Similarly in the pres- 
ent connection, Christ might have given to 
His Apostles certain powers, which they 
would exercise during the period of their 
mortal life, in such a way that other pro- 
vision would be made for the ages that were 
to come before "the world w T ould be rolled 
up as a scroll." But we are not to consider 
what He might have done : we are to look at 
what He actually did do. 

Now as a matter of actual fact, we find 
from the unshakable records of the gospel 
history that the powers of teaching, sancti- 
fying, and ruling men in the realm of the 
spirit were not to cease with the death of 
the Apostles. These loved ones of the Lord 
were indeed to go the way of all flesh : they 
were to bow down their heads beneath the 
stroke of death in the glorious confession 
unto blood of their loyalty to the Master 
whom they loved. Yet their work was to 
go on and on through the passing years un- 



72 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



til the crack of doom and the magnificent 
advent of the King in "much power and 
majesty." 1 

The Apostles bore a twofold character, to 
which we must give attentive consideration. 
On the one hand they were the Apostles of 
the Master, called by a vocation immediately 
divine, sent to the work of the first promul- 
gation of the gospel and the initial proclama- 
tion of the words and works of the King. 
In this capacity they were endowed with 
certain qualities, which were their individ- 
ual privileges and were not to be repeated 
in the persons of successors. Never again 
after the call of the Twelve and of Paul 
(and possibly of Barnabas) were there to 
be others, who would be sent directly by the 
Christ or the Spirit of God upon their mis- 
sion to mankind. As the first heralds to the 
world of the message of Christ their place 
would never be taken by others. 

But besides this their special prerogative 
of Apostles of the Master, there was the fact 
that they were the pastors of the Church of 
Christ and possessed as such the threefold 

iMatt. XXIV, 30, 



SOME PEEEOGATIVES 73 



power which we have thought about: they 
were the teachers of men, the ministers unto 
sanctification, and the rulers unto salvation 
of the faithful ones whom they brought to 
the Christ. Even as pastors, it is true, they 
held from the Master some gifts which were 
of an extraordinary and personal character 
and as such were not to be transmitted to 
their successors. But for all this the ordi- 
nary powers of their pastoral charge were to 
go on even after they had paid the debt of 
nature to the grim angel of death. As a 
moral body for teaching, sanctifying, and 
ruling Christ's Church they were to be in- 
defectible, — undying until the end of time ; 
for the Master had willed that their three- 
fold office should be exercised until He 
should come again. 

Yes, Christ willed that His Church should 
endure; and this means two things. First 
of all, it means that by the will of Christ 
never until the day of doom will there come 
a time, when His Church will give place to 
another and more perfect economy of God 
with men. There was a time in the gray 
dimness of the past when men lived accord- 



74 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



ing to what was called "the law of nature," 
in which no positive revelation of God as 
to the manner of His worship had been 
vouchsafed. Then came the period of "the 
Law," when God Himself through Moses 
gave the Law to His chosen people and pre- 
scribed the elaborate ceremonial of sacri- 
ficial rites. Both of these dispensations 
passed away; but there will never come a 
time, when the Church of Christ, founded 
upon the Apostles, will disappear before an- 
other dispensation more perfect and uplift- 
ing. 

In the second place, the perpetuity of 
Christ's institution means not only unbroken 
continuance to the end of time, but also the 
absence of any essential change in that which 
Christ founded. Accidental modifications 
there may and will be ; changes of ecclesias- 
tical law and discipline will and must be 
made to meet the changing exigencies of the 
passing years; development of doctrinal 
teaching, as more clearly and intimately 
grasping the full content of "the deposit," 1 
delivered for once and all, will mark the 

U. Tim. VI, 20. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 75 



growth of a living moral personality. But 
the essentials of the constitution of the 
Church must remain forever unchanged: 
there must be no substantial modification of 
its nature even by way of addition : the same 
society with a visible teaching authority, a 
visible system of sanctifying rites, a visible 
ruling jurisdiction must forever visibly do 
its work, — or else the work of Christ will 
have perished. " Semper eadem," " always 
and the same," are the words which might be 
blazoned on the banner of Christ's Church 
to float proudly to the air of heaven in peace 
or in war, until the angel of God will declare 
with a mighty voice that time shall be no 
more. 

We shall presently see more in detail that 
such is the Kingdom of Christ as He founded 
it ; but let us first look for a moment at the 
position of those who deny all this. There 
are many (oh, so many!), who have not 
grasped this sacred truth about the Master's 
work. Many of our separated brethren, 
driven by the desperate need of defending 
an anomalous position, would restrict the 
promise of unfailing existence to the fiction 



76 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of an " invisible Church" which they have 
dreamed. Others would confine the trans- 
mission of powers to some unimportant and 
almost negligible qualities, but to the exclu- 
sion of the authoritative, infallible teaching 
power, which is at the very heart of the 
Great Charter of the Kingdom. Others 
maintain that Christianity is a religion of 
continued progress, subject of necessity to 
adaptation to the changing environment of 
time and social conditions; but in all this 
they forget the words of the Master, who 
gave His Apostles the office of preaching, 
not their own opinions, but all things what- 
soever He had commanded, 1 — that and noth- 
ing else. Again, we have heard of the fanci- 
ful illusion, invented by Fichte, defended by 
Schelling, and accepted in part by others, 
according to which a threefold different 
Church is successively in possession: first, 
the Church of Peter, which is the Catholic 
Church ; then the Church of Paul, which is 
the Protestant Church; and finally the 
Church of John, which has come of late 
years, or is still to bless the world with the 

i cf . Matt. XXVIII, 20. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 77 



sweetness of the spirit of " the disciple whom 
Jesus loved": 1 — but all this excludes the 
Church of Christ " always and the same." 
Besides, there were the heretics of the early 
ages of Christianity, like the Montanists and 
Manicheans ; the false-mystics of the middle 
ages, who had not a little to do with the rise 
of the so-called Reformation: there are ex- 
ploiters of newer revelations, like the Swe- 
denborgians, the Quakers, the Mormons, the 
Spiritualists, all of whom teach that new and 
important revelations have been given by 
heaven to earth, and that others are still to 
be given to their churches in substitution for 
the teachings given by Christ to the Apostles. 
Yes, it's the old, old story of error being 
myriad-faced, whilst truth is one in its sim- 
plicity. 

In opposition to all these shifting shapes 
of error we have the clear manifestation of 
the will of Christ. He willed that His 
Church should last unchanged throughout 
the ages, always doing the work which He 
had given to the Twelve to do for the souls 
of men. To realize this it is only necessary 

iJohn XXI, 20. 



78 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



to look with humble heart and unprejudiced 
mind at the words of Christ Jesus about His 
Church. 

To begin with, there is His instruction in 
the form of parable. For instance, our Lord 
had told the story of the vigilant servants, 1 
who were to be ready for their lord's coming 
at any time and thus show themselves worthy 
of the reward that would be theirs. Simon 
Peter asked our blessed Lord whether His 
words referred to the faithful in general or 
to the Apostles in particular ; and in reply 
our Savior spoke the parable of the faithful 
steward, who on the departure of his lord 
fulfilled the office of overseer for the whole 
household. 2 The parable is first and fore- 
most an exhortation to fidelity in their 
charge to those who have been appointed the 
stewards in the house of God; but back of 
this appeal is the teaching that the stewards 
will have charge of the family until the lord 
returns. Now, Christ is the Lord who was 
to go away ; for the time was at hand, when 
He was going to withdraw His outward 

iLuke XII, 37-40. 
2 Luke XII, 41-48. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 79 



presence from His own, not to appear again 
in visible manifestation until His coming at 
the end of time: unto the end the Apostles 
were to be the faithful stewards of the house- 
hold over which Christ had placed them. 
Yes, unto the end! For to everyone, who 
does not look upon Christ as a mistaken 
visionary, these words of His tell of His 
survey of the place of the Apostles in His 
Church until time would be no more and He 
Himself would come in the majesty of God 
to demand an account of all the subjects of 
His Kingdom. 

But not only in parable did Christ teach 
this truth. At Csesarea Philippi He spoke 
to Peter the magnificent promise, which we 
shall consider in the next lecture about the 
"Primate of the Kingdom." There and 
then with the fulness of the power which was 
His Christ promised that "the gates of hell 
would not prevail against His Church. ' ' 1 
That was the promise of the legate of God, 
Christ Jesus, who was Himself really and 
truly divine. 

The words may be taken in either of two 

iMatt. XVI, 18. 



80 CHKIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



senses ; but in both cases they promise the un- 
dying continuance of the Church. The word 
"hell" may mean "death," as some prefer 
to take it: "the gates of hell" then speak of 
"the power of death," which is altogether 
insuperable. In this case what Christ said 
was that not even the power of death, before 
which everything earthly must bow in sub- 
jection, would be more insuperable than the 
Church that was His ; that His Church could 
never be touched ; that death itself in its uni- 
versal domination would not be more su- 
preme than His Church, which was exempt 
from its dominion and would live on in its 
deathless sway. Or again (and the inter- 
pretation seems preferable in view of the 
form of the expression) "hell" may mean 
"the infernal regions" and its dread inhabi- 
tants; and "the gates of hell" then stand for 
the power of the arch-enemy, whose kingdom 
is opposed to the Kingdom of Christ in the 
endless battle, that was begun at the com- 
mencement of our Lord's public ministry, 
that went on until the climax of Calvary and 
will continue until the end of time. In this 
understanding of the text the words of 



SOME PREROGATIVES 81 



Christ promise that in this unending con- 
flict not even the power of the enemy who is 
the chief of the powers of evil, and conse- 
quently no power that is less, will conquer 
His beloved Church. Assault there will be 
and the undying attack of the foe whose hate 
knows no ending; but never will the onsets 
of that enemy overthrow the Kingdom of the 
Master. 

It is invincible from without: so too is 
it preserved from the internal corruption 
which would undo the work of the King. 
We remember the words of the Great Char- 
ter, giving to the Apostles their powers and 
the promise of divine help: " Going there- 
fore teach ye all nations. . . . And behold 
I am with you" 1 and the rest. Christ's effi- 
cacious assistance is pledged to them for 
their mission ; for He said, 6 ' I am with you. ' ' 
How long? "I am with you all days even 
to the consummation of the world." Yes, 
that is the promise of the Christ. "All 
days" He would be with them without any 
interruption of His divine care, "even to the 
consummation of the world." 

i Matt, XXVIII, 19, 20. 



82 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



When in the day of harvesting the angels 
of God will have separated the wheat from 
the cockle; when the division between the 
faithful and the recreant will have taken 
place ; when in the face of all mankind the 
Judge of the living and the dead will have 
exercised His sway over all the sons of men, 
rendering to each one according to his works, 
before He delivers up the Kingdom to God 
the Father; when the Church militant will 
have been transformed into the Church tri- 
umphant and the joy of God will ravish the 
true children of the Kingdom, whilst eternal 
reprobation will have been meted out to those 
who have trifled with the Master's mercy 
and scorned the love of the King, — then, and 
not till then, will the earthly Kingdom of 
Christ have an end. 

Yes, the Master's commission to the 
Twelve was to go on after they had been 
gathered to their fathers : their work was to 
live forever in their successors. They un- 
derstood this clearly. So, they made pro- 
vision for the carrying on of the message 
committed to them, — and this through the 
ministry of the chosen ones on whom they 



SOME PREROGATIVES 83 



in turn placed the glorious burden of service 
by the imposition of hands and a share in the 
ruling of souls. That was their care, as the 
sacred writings and the records of the his- 
tory of the primitive ages show beyond the 
reach of caviling criticism. 

Down through the ages the Church of 
Christ was to journey, walking with the sons 
of men with her message of peace and love 
and holiness : her steps were to lead her to 
every clime through every age, though her 
footprints were to be marked with her blood, 
shed beneath the hand of fierce persecution, 
as she strove in mighty battle against "the 
gates of hell." As long as there would be 
men to be brought to God in the way fixed 
by the King of all mankind, she was to be 
there to bring them, — and that would be un- 
til time would be no more. As long as there 
would be hearts to be strengthened against 
the assaults of hell and the weakness of 
faltering selfishness, she was to be there to 
give the light and the strength and the 
love, — and that would be until the last trum- 
pet call. As long as there would be souls to 
be led to a share in the abundant redemption 



84 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of the Victim of the world unto the remission 
of sin and the sanctification of the sons of 
God, she would be in the midst of them doing 
the work of the Master, — and that would be 
until the consummation of all things at the 
end of time. Without change and without 
the weakening decay of old age she would 
live on, active, vigorous, deathless, until the 
second coming of the King, as He left her 
when He mounted up from earth into the 
glory of the Father. 

She was to do His work, and she alone; 
for there is but one true Church of the Mas- 
ter, one only Kingdom of the King. This 
is the second prerogative of the Kingdom, 
that it is without a peer or an authorized 
rival. One and alone Christ's Church stands 
as His unique Kingdom. He might have 
left a score of churches; He left but one. 
He might have instituted many independ- 
ent principalities of spiritual power; He 
founded only one. 

The organized society which was to do His 
work was gifted with the threefold pow r er 
that reached out to all mankind. The Apos- 
tles were to teach Christ's whole gospel, not 



SOME PREROGATIVES 85 



to some, but to all nations ; and with such a 
teaching-body there was no room for any- 
other authorized doctrinal teacher. The 
rites ministering unto sanctification were to 
bring holiness to all the faithful gathered 
into the fold; and there was no place for 
another sacramental system to apply to men 
the merits of the Redeemer. The spiritual 
jurisdiction of the perpetual Apostolic Col- 
lege embraced all, who, not only by right, 
but in fact belonged to the Master by sub- 
mission to His institution ; there was nothing 
left for any other spiritual ruling. 

Moreover, Christ spoke of His Kingdom, 
not of His Kingdoms : He yearned over His 
flock, not over many disunited folds. Nay, 
according to the mind of St. Paul, to whose 
words we shall return on another occasion, 
Christ's Church was the mystic body of 
which Christ was the head : there are neither 
two heads for one body nor several bodies 
for one head under penalty of a monstrosity 
being the result. 

In view of this clear teaching by Christ 
it is really hard to understand the position 
of those who speak of various churches 



86 CHKIST'S MASTBEPIECE 



without the slightest organic connection as 
being indifferently the Church of Christ. 
They make Him the founder of a dozen inde- 
pendent societies, or rather (and this seems 
to be the solution of the paradox) they really 
deny Him to have been the founder of any 
Church at all. In that supposition their 
position is understood easily enough ; but the 
supposition itself contradicts the facts which 
we dwelt upon, when we saw that Christ did 
found an organized body with the unity 
which is necessary for every social organ- 
ization. 

There is one theory to which I must refer 
in passing, which seems at first glance to 
stand with the idea of Christ's Church being 
one and only one, and at the same time not 
one; and this is what is called "the branch 
theory" by some of the Anglicans. Accord- 
ing to them the Greek Church, the Roman 
Catholic Church, and the Anglican Church 
are three branches (others call them three 
sisters ; others, three provinces) : and the 
three together constitute the one Church of 
the Master. 

The theory would seem to save the truth 



SOME PREROGATIVES 87 



of Christ's Church being only one; but it 
does so by denying the essential unity, which 
is necessary for every true society. Not by 
the wildest flight of imagination could a per- 
son call three states one and the same nation, 
when each state rejects the authority of the 
other two, when each clings to its own auton- 
omy, when each stands steadfast beneath the 
folds of a distinct banner. No more readily 
can one admit these three churches, — for 
three they are, — as constituent parts of one 
and the same Church and Kingdom of the 
Christ. For most unquestionably they are 
opposed. Between the Greek Church and 
the Roman Catholic Church, from which the 
Greek Church cut itself off, the opposition 
has lasted in open acknowledgment for over 
eight centuries : the separation of the Church 
of England from both Greece and Rome, for 
well nigh four hundred years. These three 
churches do not admit any one authority; 
they have their separate banners, which are 
battle flags beneath which they fight, not with 
bitterness of heart against the adherents of 
the other churches (that may God avert in 
the cause of sweet charity !) , but with uncom- 



88 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



promising opposition to the others' claims, 
which they look upon as false and little short 
of blasphemous. No, the Greek Church, the 
Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church 
are not one. Whichever of them is the true 
Church of Christ, — thank God! we know, 
and shall consider more at length in a sub- 
sequent lecture, — each of them is distinct 
from the others, and all together cannot be 
the one true Church of the Master. 

The third prerogative of the Kingdom is 
its necessity; and this is obviously of su- 
preme importance to understand. Once 
again, Christ might have done any one of 
several things; and among them He might 
have instituted His Church as a very useful 
means of attaining heaven, without imposing 
upon men any obligation of belonging to it. 
The supposition, it is true, is not likely even 
apart from the explicit declarations of the 
King, which tell us that as a matter of fact 
He made His Church obligatory. For on the 
face of it, it was not to be expected that He 
would work out the atonement for the human 
race according to the plan of His all-merci- 
ful love, that besides He would take the very 



SOME PREROGATIVES 89 



great care He did in choosing and training 
and authorizing His Apostles for their 
work, which was to last to the end of time, — 
and then remain quite indifferent as to 
whether men would think it worth their 
while to avail themselves of the means sup- 
plied by His love, or would pass them by in 
utter disregard, if not in positive contempt. 

But he did not leave us in any doubt as to 
what He intended when He founded His 
Church. He made this Church necessary 
for all men in order to come to salvation, in 
such sort that one who knowingly and will- 
ingly and culpably lives and dies outside 
of the external, organized body, which is 
Christ's one and only perpetual Church on 
earth, cannot hope to have part with Christ 
in the eternal joys of heaven. 

There is no getting away from the con- 
clusion, if one admits the dignity of Christ 
and His right to fix the way in which the 
fruits of His redemption are to be applied. 
For, by His will it is necessary for men to 
believe, to be baptized, to hear the Church in 
order to have part with Him. By His divine 
determination faith is a condition for bap- 



90 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



tism for all who are capable of faith, and re- 
pentance too for past sins, if the life of God 
with its regenerating power is to come to the 
soul: by baptism one is solemnly initiated 
into the Kingdom of Christ: by obedience 
one remains there. 

These points have been solidly established 
before and it will not be necessary to repeat 
the consideration of them here. It will be 
enough to hearken to the words: "All 
power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 
Going therefore teach ye all nations, baptiz- 
ing them in the name of the Father and of 
the Son and of the Holy Ghost." 1 "He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
he that believeth not shall be condemned." 2 
"Unless a man be born again of water and 
the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the 
Kingdom of heaven." 3 "He that will not 
hear the Church, let him be to thee as the 
heathen and publican." 4 Yes, faith, bap- 
tism, and obedience to the Church are neces- 
sary for salvation. Now precisely by these 

iMatt. XXVIII, 18, 19. 

2 Mark XVI, 16. 

3 John III, 5. 

* Matt. XVIII, 17. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 91 



means does one become and remain a mem- 
ber of Christ's one, true, perpetual Church; 
and hence as a matter of inevitable conse- 
quence that Church is necessary for the at- 
tainment of salvation. 

If, when Christ walked the earth, a man 
had flouted His teaching in the conscious re- 
jection of His heaven-attested mission, could 
he hope for a share in Christ's beneficence 1 ? 
No more can one hope for this, when he 
scorns the authority of the Church that 
teaches with the power of the Master. 
Could one who would have nothing to do with 
the means of sanctification of the Great 
High-Priest of mankind dare to face his 
Mediator with calm assurance? No more 
can he do so, when he wilfully and sinfully 
rejects the ministry of the Church which 
guards the sacraments of Christ. Could one 
who for fear or pride or love of earthly ease 
denied the rights of the King to his obedient 
loyalty dare look to that King for the re- 
ward of glorious triumph % No more can he 
do so, when he obstinately disobeys the 
Church; for, said the King, ' ' he that heareth 
you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth you, 



92 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



despiseth me ; and lie that despiseth me, de- 
spiseth Him that sent me." 1 

Men had the right to demand of the Christ 
the credentials of His mission : men have the 
right to exact proofs of the claims of the 
Church. But after the credentials have 
been shown, after the claims have been 
proved, there exists the undoubted obliga- 
tion to follow the Christ, to embrace His 
Church. Not to do so is to be guilty of 
grievous sin : to live and die in that sin is to 
purchase for oneself the unending horrors 
of despairing damnation. 

To belong to Christ's one true Church is, 
then, a matter of serious precept ; but it is 
more than that. Ignorance of the existence 
of a command excuses one from the guilt of 
violation of precept, if the ignorance itself 
is inculpable; but even guiltless ignorance 
with consequent neglect of the provisions of 
Christ does not leave one in the same condi- 
tion as if he had availed himself of what 
Christ has laid down. No, to enter Christ's 
Church and to remain in it is not only to ful- 
fill a command of the Master : it is to make 



iLuke X, 16. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 93 



use of the means fixed by Him for the attain- 
ment of eternal life. His Church is the way 
staked out by Him, by which all must travel 
towards the Father's home : it is the general, 
ordinary economy of salvation. Although 
by reason of inculpable ignorance one is 
guiltless in missing the way, still he will not 
reach the term of the journey, except by the 
paths left for those, — and those only, — who 
cannot take the way traced by the Savior of 
mankind. 

Of course, there is a large place left for 
good faith and corresponding good will, be- 
cause "God will have all men to be saved," 1 
and has therefore reserved for His special 
providence the helping of those who with- 
out fault of their own cannot profit by the 
means determined by His general and ordi- 
nary economy of salvation. An act of per- 
fect love of God or an act of true contrition 
based upon the love of God for His own sake 
will bring man to God; and it will keep him 
united to God, so long as sin does not break 
the sacred link of union. But this very act 
of love or sorrow includes the will to do 

H. Tim. II, 4. 



94 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



what God has demanded of men. Member- 
ship in His one, necessary Church He has 
demanded: so, the will to comply with this 
divine provision is part of the act of love 
that cleaves to God. And with His divine 
insight, which looks down into the secret re- 
cesses of the soul, God reads that will en- 
wrapped in love, and He takes "the will for 
the deed," when the deed is impossible of 
fulfillment to the loyal fidelity of His lov- 
ing child. 

Yet with the largest possible limits as- 
signed to the compensatory value of good 
faith and good will it remains forever true 
that the Church is Christ's way to heaven, 
and that, to use the language of the first 
preachers of the gospel of the Kingdom, it 
is "the ark of salvation." 1 Even though 
there are ways which may serve as substi- 
tutes, then, and then only, when this way is 
impossible without the fault of the individ- 
ual, it is far from true to say that the condi- 
tion of those who are within the visible pale 
of Christ's Church does not differ much 
from the state of those who are innocently 

i Cf. I. Peter III, 20, 21. 



SOME PREROGATIVES 95 



outside of it. That statement is false with 
the falseness of "the father of lies." 1 
Those who in guiltless ignorance are with- 
out, may come to God and may reach eternal 
life. But they are like wanderers from the 
true pathway to heaven, who glimpse an oc- 
casional ray of light divine to lead them on, 
whilst the children of the Kingdom are walk- 
ing on in the full splendor of the Sun of Jus- 
tice: they are kept from starvation by the 
crumbs which fall from the King's table, 
while the children of the Kingdom are seated 
at the bountiful banquet-board of love di- 
vine. 

Par be it from us to take upon ourselves 
the office of judge, and to pass sentence upon 
the sincerity or insincerity of those who are 
not united to the Master's visible Church 
by the bonds of external communion ! Par 
be it from us to place limits to the mercy of 
God, as shown forth in the inscrutable ways 
of His special and individual providence 
over the souls of such as do what lies in their 
power! But equally far be it from us to 
take part in the supercilious, careless indif- 

Uohn VIII, 44. 



96 CHKIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



ferentism of the world, which makes of 
Christ's supreme work a mere nothing, that 
may be slighted and scorned with impunity, 
and which denies the power of Jesus Christ 
to determine with sovereign right the man- 
ner in which men are to share in the re- 
demption which He accomplished on the 
blood-stained gibbet of the cross ! 

And alas! this spirit, which calls itself 
" broad-minded" and " tolerant," stalks 
through the world and leaves men estranged 
from God. It talks of religion without dog- 
mas, of the deeper meaning of faith behind 
the formalism of creeds; and it makes of 
Christianity a futile nothing, which is of no 
more worth than the vagaries of paganism. 
And beyond this folly of liberal indifferent- 
ists, who say that it makes no difference 
whether a man believes or what he believes, 
and who thus contradict the words and the 
mission of the Son of God, there is the 
hardly less fatal indifferentism of those who 
call themselves Christians and dare to say 
that all so-called Christian bodies are but 
various forms of the same institution of the 
King; that all these roads lead to the same 



SOME PREKOGATIVES 97 



goal ; that God is the Father and Christ the 
Brother of all who follow any of these Chris- 
tian churches ; that a consummation devout- 
ly to be hoped for is a union of the Christian 
bodies by the elimination of their points of 
difference, — which means the compromise of 
divine revelation or the denial of any Chris- 
tian revelation at all; that the more of in- 
dividual liberty (which spells license), the 
more of the freedom proper to the gospel 
reigns. 

Great heavens ! And what about the fact 
that Christ did make a revelation binding 
upon all mankind ; that He did leave behind 
Him an authorized guardian of that revela- 
tion to keep it to the end of time ; that He 
is the author of one only Church; that as 
men value the love of the King and the sal- 
vation of their immortal souls they are 
bound to become and remain members of 
that Church which is the way to life ever- 
lasting? Toleration, which means respect 
for the convictions of other men, which 
means the refusal to assume to ourselves the 
office of judging in the place of God, which 
means the charity that should be accorded 



98 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



even to the erring, — this is a blessed thing 
born of love for God and man. But tolera- 
tion, which would mean a scornful indiffer- 
ence to the exclusive claims of the truth of 
God, a contempt for the revelation of the 
All- Wise, a neglect of the supreme sover- 
eignty of Christ the King, — this is a lie 
fathered in hell, a blasphemy against the 
very Godhead, and a wild rushing into the 
bottomless pit of everlasting reprobation. 

To conclude, then, the Church of Christ 
the Lord was founded by Him to last un- 
changed through all the ages of this old 
earth of ours until the day when He will 
come in great power and majesty to judge 
the living and the dead. He promised that 
this would be so; and His promise cannot 
fail, for it stands on the unshakable founda- 
tion of divine fidelity. Somewhere in this 
world that Church of His lives on, doing the 
work which He gave it to do : somewhere it 
teaches and sanctifies and rules the children 
of the Kingdom. It is not an unorganized 
aggregation of disunited fragments : it is an 
organized unity without a peer, without a 
like. It is one and alone, though many 



SOME PREROGATIVES 99 



counterfeits try to take its place of holy 
honor. It is also necessary for men in order 
to reach their eternal happiness in the man- 
sions of God. Without limiting the extent 
of the operations of God's mysterious provi- 
dence for individual souls, it remains true 
that His general and ordinary economy of 
salvation requires that all men be members 
of this one, perpetual, necessary Church. 

As a consequence it is of supreme impor- 
tance to everyone to know and recognize this 
Church, which is the way to heaven. If we 
are its members (and thank God! we Cath- 
olics are), we should cling to it with love 
and loyalty and with lives that tally with our 
profession. Those who are not yet within it 
must come to it. Christ is ' ' the Way and the 
Truth and the Life": 1 so too in partici- 
pated measure is His Church. The feet of 
strong desire must be ready to tread this 
way ; the eyes of the mind must be opened to 
see this truth ; the arms of the soul must be 
stretched wide to clasp this life in thrilling 
love to the centre of the heart 's embrace. 

In the next lecture we shall begin the con- 

i John XIV, 6. 



100 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



sideration of the truths which will lead us 
without error to this indispensable knowl- 
edge. For the present let us appreciate with 
grateful souls the unlimited love of the King 
which moved Him to give to His Kingdom 
these sacred prerogatives, which are hers 
and hers alone, as she carries on the work 
of Him who " having loved His own who 
were in the world, loved them unto the 
end." 1 



i John XIII, 1. 



LECTURE IV 



THE PRIMATE OF THE KINGDOM 

One way to find Church. Primacy : of honor : of ju- 
risdiction. Peter's place among the Twelve. 
Incomprehensible without primacy. Christ's 
promise. Words to Peter alone. Contents of 
promise : foundation : key-bearer. Conferring of 
primacy. An evasion. Primacy perpetual. In- 
volves infallibility. True and false meanings. 
"Where is Peter? Not in Protestant or Greek 
churches. Is in Catholic Church alone. Con- 
clusion. 

We have reached the point of greatest in- 
terest and of highest importance in our con- 
siderations. For now we come to the very 
source of energy in the institution of Christ : 
we touch the very heart of the plan of our 
blessed Lord with regard to the Kingdom 
which He founded on earth. The interest 
that attached to our preceding reflections 
was great indeed, quite apart from the mer- 
its or demerits of presentation, — and this be- 
cause of the vital bearing of it all upon each 
of us individually. In humble reverence 
and yearning love we have studied what the 

101 



102 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Master did, as He made provision for the 
preservation and propagation of His revela- 
tion and religion throughout all ages unto 
the consummation of the world. 

With sincere docility and singleness of 
purpose to seize upon what Christ actually 
did, not upon what He might have done or 
on what misguided wise (?) ones have said 
that He did, we have understood that He 
founded His Kingdom. He instituted His 
Church with the threefold power of teaching 
mankind with infallible authority, of sancti- 
fying men with the religious rites left by 
Himself, and of ruling the souls of the chil- 
dren of the Kingdom in the ways of faith 
and holiness. Christ 's Church is not a man- 
made organization, evolved by human in- 
genuity from the religious impulse given by 
Him and rounded out by the influence of 
philosophic thought and political power. It 
is a divine institution, founded as a true and 
independent society by Christ the legate of 
God, aye, God Himself. 

We have furthermore understood in the 
light of truth that Christ made His Church 
for all time, to live on through all the years 



THE PEIMATE 103 



of this old world of ours, doing His work 
of love until the last of the children of God 
has been brought to the Father through its 
ministrations. One and alone it stands as 
His unique masterpiece, without peer or 
rival: for the King did not found many- 
kingdoms ; the Christ did not institute many 
churches, but one Kingdom, one Church. 
And this one, perpetual Kingdom, which is 
His Church, is necessary for all mankind, 
in order that they may come to the eternal 
happiness which the love of God has placed 
as their everlasting destiny. The folly of 
dogmatic toleration and the arrogance of in- 
differentism are blasphemies against the 
Most High God. 

It is, then, of supreme importance to all 
to know where this one, true, obligatory 
Church of Christ the King is : for those who 
are its members, that they may ever more 
loyally appreciate the blessed privilege that 
is theirs ; for those who do not yet belong to 
its saving communion, that they may come 
unto the Christ in His Church, until there 
shall be but one fold and one shepherd. 

So, we are to look still closer at the consti- 



104 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



tution of the Kingdom, at the make-up of the 
Church of the Master ; and from this consid- 
eration, under the helping grace of God, we 
shall get clearer light to mark out the path 
of sure knowledge as to what and where 
this Church of Christ is. In the next lec- 
ture, upon "The Seal of the King's Signet," 
we shall learn from the Christ what marks 
He stamped upon His Church to distinguish 
it from counterfeits. But before we come 
to that consideration we can already find 
Christ's single masterpiece from the truth 
which shines forth from the Church as 
builded by the Master. The subject of our 
present study, then, is "The Primate of the 
Kingdom." 

Now Peter was that primate. When we 
studied the Great Charter of the Kingdom 
and the constitution of the Church of the 
Master, we saw that Christ gave to the Apos- 
tolic Body the power of teaching and ruling 
men. They had, and would have forever, 
this God-given power for the work commit- 
ted to them. But, whilst all the Apostles 
were thus commissioned by the Master, was 
their power equal in every respect? iWas 



THE PRIMATE 105 



there no difference between them? Or was 
there a real primacy established by the 
Christ? Primacy, of course, means some 
preeminence and superiority, and may be of 
different kinds. But the primacy of which 
we speak is preeminence not merely in re- 
gard to some outward deference or consid- 
eration for reasons of personal worth or age 
or such like titles : it is the primacy of juris- 
diction, which means superiority over others 
by reason of supreme authority. And we 
ask, was there a primacy of jurisdiction in 
the Apostolic College in such a way that all, 
faithful and superiors alike, were subject to 
the supreme ruling power in the hands of 
one? 

The answer, as gathered from the words 
of the divine founder of the Christian 
Church, is that there was ; that Peter was the 
supreme ruler over all the members of the 
Church ; that Peter by his jurisdictional pre- 
eminence was at the head of the earthly 
Kingdom instituted by Christ the King. 
But let us look at the matter carefully and 
humbly; for it is a question whose impor- 
tance cannot be exaggerated, — this question 



106 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of the Petrine claims. We say that Peter 
was the one to whom Christ after His mortal 
career left His own place ; the one who was 
made the vicegerent of Christ Himself ; the 
one whose sway extended not only to each of 
the faithful from the highest to the lowest, 
but to each of the members of the Apostolic 
Body. We say that in their teaching and 
ruling authority the Twelve had a head, — 
and that the head was Peter. 

First of all, before trying to grasp in all 
its force the argument derived from the 
promises and actual gift made by Christ, 
let us look upon the position of Peter 
among the Twelve, as shown to us by the 
writings of the New Testament. There 
is something very significant in the very 
first meeting of Peter with the Master, to 
whom Andrew had brought him with the 
soul-stirring words, "We have found the 
Messias." For " Jesus looking upon him 
said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: 
thou shalt be called Cephas, which is inter- 
preted, Peter," 1 the Rock. Thus Christ 
either gave, or promised to give him, 

i John I, 41, 42. 



THE PEIMATE 107 



a special name, — a name, by which, so far 
as we know, never before had man been 
called. And this He did to no one else. 
Christ, did indeed, call John and James "the 
sons of thunder,' ' as He called Herod "the 
fox"; but He did not change their names. 
Yet Simon's name was changed to Peter. 
And it is worthy of note, that in His pre- 
vious dealings with the race whenever God 
changed a man's name, the change was indi- 
cative of the functions of that man in the de- 
signs of God. This we see, for instance, in 
the case of Abraham 1 and Israel, 2 who were 
Abram and Jacob until God changed their 
names. 

Peter is always among those to whom 
special honor is shown by Christ. For he 
is one of the three to witness the glory of the 
Transfiguration 3 and the crushing sorrow 
of the Master's agony. 4 Especial consider- 
ation is always shown to him: for him and 
the Christ the tribute is paid; 5 from his 

iGen. XVII, 5. 

2 Gen. XXXII, 28. 

3 Matt. XVII, 1. 

* Matt. XXVI, 37. 
5 Matt. XVII, 26. 



108 CHEIST'S MASTERPIECE 



ship the Master teaches the crowds ; 1 to him 
of all the Apostles the risen Lord first mani- 
fests Himself in the glory of His triumph. 2 
During the public life of Christ it is al- 
ways Peter whom Christ addresses in par- 
ticular : it is Peter who answers first either 
in the name of the others 3 or in his own 
name. 4 And after the departure of Christ 
it is still the same. Peter takes the lead, 
when the place of the traitor Judas is to be 
filled : 5 in the name of all he preaches the 
first Apostolic sermon on the day of Pente- 
cost : 6 he stands forth from the rest by the 
priority and magnificence of the mira- 
cles wrought in confirmation of Christian 
truth : 7 he admits the Gentiles into the 
Church : 8 he leads the first Apostolic Coun- 
cil in J erusalem : 9 it is to see him that Paul 
journeys to the Holy City. 10 

1 Luke V, 3. 

2 Luke XXIV, 34. 

3 Matt. XIX, 27 ; John VI, 69. 

* Matt. XVI, 16 ; John XXI, 15. 

s Acts I, 15. 

s Acts II, 14 ff. 

i Acts III, 7 ; V, 15. 

8 Acts X. 

9 Acts XV, 7 ff. 

10 Gal. I, 18. 



THE PRIMATE 109 



The New Testament writings give his 
name the place of honor. They speak of 
" Simon and those that were with him." 1 
Thirty times do they mention him with the 
others, — and always in the place of honor, 
save in a single instance 2 which is not a real 
exception. Peter is referred to as "the 
first." 3 Yet he is not first in the Master's 
love, for John was "the disciple whom Jesus 
loved"; * not first in priority of vocation, 
for others, Andrew and John, were before 
him there ; not first by reason of greater age, 
for of this no probable proof exists. Still, 
he is "the first." Does all this mean noth- 
ing % Does it mean only a vague precedence 
or a primacy of mere honor % Far from it. 
He is the chief one among the Twelve : and 
this position is easily understood in view of 
Christ's clear words telling of the primacy 
of authority ; but it is all quite unintelligible, 
if we reject the unique elevation of him who 
was to bear the name of Peter, the Rock. 

Mindful of this position of Simon, let us 

iMark I, 36; Luke VIII, 45. 

2 Gal. II, 9. 

3 Matt. X, 2. 

* John XXI, 20. 



110 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



turn to the scene at Caesarea PMlippi to- 
wards the close of the Savior's Galilean min- 
istry. In St. Matthew we have the happen- 
ing painted for us in words simple with the 
sincerity of truth, sublime with the grandeur 
of divine beneficence. "And Jesus . . . 
asked of His disciples saying : Who do men 
say that the Son of Man is ? But they said : 
Some John the Baptist, and other some 
Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the 
prophets. Jesus saith to them: But who 
do you say that I am? Simon Peter an- 
swered and said: Thou art the Christ the 
Son of the living God. And J esus answer- 
ing said to him: Blessed art thou Simon 
Bar- J ona : because flesh and blood hath not 
revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in 
heaven. And I say to thee, that thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
Church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it. And I will give to thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven. And what- 
sover thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be 
bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou 
shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also 



THE PEIMATE 111 



in heaven." 1 There is the glorious prom- 
ise of the Christ, whose words shall not pass 
away, though heaven and earth shall pass 
away. "And I say to thee, that thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
Church. . . . And I will give to thee the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven " on earth. 

First of all we note that these words are 
addressed to Peter and to Peter alone, to 
whom, according to the expression of Christ 
Jesus, the heavenly Father had made a 
special revelation, not vouchsafed to the 
other Apostles. Other promises were made 
to the Twelve, but to them with Peter and 
because of his relation to them ; yet to none 
of the others, nor to all of them, were ever 
spoken the words which fell from the lips 
of the God-man upon this most solemn oc- 
casion. The evangelist says that it was to 
Peter that Christ spoke; and Christ's words 
confirm this beyond question, for they sin- 
gled out Peter and distinguished him from 
all the rest. As Bellarmine has well re- 
marked, if Christ had chosen to imitate the 

iMatt. XVI, 13-17. 



112 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



form of legal documents with their great 
particularity of description, He could not 
have been more precise. For He calls Simon 
by his ordinary name ; He adds the name of 
his father; He continues with the special 
name of His own divine giving. " Blessed 
art thou Simon — Bar-Jona (son of John) — 
thou art Peter." He addresses him apart 
from all the others. "Blessed art thou— 
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
build my Church — I will give to thee the 
keys of the kingdom." Once more, what- 
ever was at any time given to the other Apos- 
tles was also given to Peter, who was part of 
the Apostolic Body ; but what is here prom- 
ised to Peter was never promised to any of 
the other Apostles. 

Now in these splendid words of Christ 
there is a twofold promise made to Peter 
alone; and both promises pledge to him the 
primacy of jurisdiction over the souls of 
men in the Church of Christ the King. For 
on the one hand Peter was to be the founda- 
tion of Christ's Church, and on the other 
he was to be the key-bearer of Christ's King- 
dom upon earth. 



THE PRIMATE 113 



Peter, the foundation of Christ's Church! 
"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
build my Church." We cannot grasp the 
full force of the words of Christ in the Eng- 
lish translation of what He said. In the 
language in which Christ spoke the two parts 
of the sentence contained identically the 
same word, Peter and the rock being quite 
the same word, Cephas or Kepha. "Thou 
art the Rock," said Christ, "and upon this 
rock I will build my Church." Peter was 
the rock : not Christ Himself, except in so far 
as He took Peter to a participation of His 
own transcendent preeminence : not the faith 
of Peter; for both of these strained inter- 
pretations of Christ's clear statement are 
against the obvious meaning of the words in 
themselves and in their context. Peter in 
his individual personality, as distinct from 
the others, was to be the rock on which Christ 
would build His Church. Can we help 
thinking of those other words of Christ, re- 
corded by St. Matthew, when the Master 
spoke of the wise man "who built his house 
upon the rock"? "And the rain fell, and 
the floods came, and the winds blew and they 



114 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it 
was founded upon a rock." 1 Yes, Christ 
was that wise one: He would build His 
Church upon the rock, upon Peter, and 
therefore the gates of hell would never pre- 
vail against it. 

As the solid rock-foundation of the 
Church of Christ, Peter was to be for that 
Church what the foundation is for the build- 
ing, the principle of unity and stability and 
permanence. Now the Church according to 
the will of Christ is a true society ; and there- 
fore Peter could be all this only by what is 
the principle of unity and stability and per- 
manence in such a society, — namely, by the 
possession of authority over all who would 
form part of that Church, by the teaching 
power reaching out to all, by the ruling 
power embracing each and every one of the 
members of Christ's organized society. 
Only by jurisdictional primacy over all, pas- 
tors and faithful alike, could he effectively 
procure the unity and stability and perma- 
nence of the house of God : only by his su- 

i Matt. VII, 25. 



THE PEIMATE 115 



preme authority could lie be the foundation- 
rock of Christ's Church. 

Furthermore, Christ promised that He 
would give to Peter "the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven"; and that means the pledge 
of supreme power in His Church. "The 
keys of the kingdom of heaven" refers to 
that Kingdom in its earthly stage, which is 
the Church itself to be built on Peter ; for in 
the glorious Kingdom of heavenly joy there 
would be no place for the jurisdictional 
power of the keys, as there would be no bind- 
ing and loosing. 

In the promise of "the keys of the king- 
dom" Christ used a well known symbol to 
signify the supreme authority, which He 
promised to give to Peter. In olden days 
the keys of a besieged city were handed over 
to the conqueror in token of his sovereign 
right over all within the walls. A relic of 
the same symbol remains with us. The last 
sign of dominion over the house is the trans- 
fer to the tenant or buyer of the keys of the 
same: and again when we wish to honor 
some one with particular civic honor, we 



116 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



hand him the keys of the city, as a sign that 
whilst he is in our midst he is the ruler of 
the commonwealth. These are but relics. 
But among the ancients, and especially 
among the people of the East, the transfer 
of the keys had a very definite significance. 
If a subject people gave the keys to some 
one, by this transfer they testified their en- 
tire subjection to him to whom they ren- 
dered up the keys. If a sovereign gave the 
keys to an inferior, he typified the transfer 
to him of his own sovereign authority ; and 
if he gave the keys of the kingdom to but 
one, it meant that to this one was given the 
supreme right of ruling over all in the name 
of the king. Consequently, when Christ, the 
King of the Kingdom, promises to give to 
Peter alone the keys of His Kingdom on 
earth, He pledges Himself to confer on Peter 
the supreme ruling power in His Church. 

In view of all this we can well understand 
the force of the other words of Christ to the 
same favored Apostle, when He told him 
that Satan had desired to bring all the Mas- 
ter's chosen ones to the final ruin of their 
work, but that He would frustrate the plans 



THE PEIMATB 117 



of the Evil One through the ministry of 
Peter. "I have prayed for thee that thy 
faith fail not: and thou being once con- 
verted confirm thy brethren." 1 It was by 
the supreme power in Peter's keeping, 
reaching out to all, even to the members of 
the Apostolic College, that Christ would 
bring to a triumphant issue the work of His 
loved ones. 

So, here is the promise of " Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, the Savior." Even if we 
did not know when or where He made good 
His promise, we should have no cause for 
doubt or apprehension; because what God 
had pledged His word to do, would some- 
where and sometime and somehow be accom- 
plished. However, we are not left even to 
this necessity of concluding that Christ must 
have done what He promised to do. We 
have the record of the actual conferring 
upon Peter of the power which was prom- 
ised to him at Cassarea Philippi. 

The days of the Passion had come and 
gone. In the triumph of the resurrection 
Christ had entered into His glory and for 

i Luke XXII, 32. 



118 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



many days had manifested Himself to His 
Apostles, strengthening them and speaking 
to them of their work in His Kingdom. 
And now the climax of His benedictions! 
All through the watches of the night seven 
of the Apostles under the lead of Simon 
Peter had labored in their craft of fishermen, 
and had caught nothing. As morning drew 
near, they saw walking on the shore the ma- 
jestic figure of one who spoke to them and 
gave them directions to cast to the right of 
the ship with the assurance that they would 
find. They obeyed ; and there followed the 
marvelous draft of fishes, which recalled the 
time when Christ had first called them to be 
fishers of men. Peter flung himself over- 
board, as soon as the clear-sighted John had 
assured him that it was the Lord : the others 
came to the shore in the boats, dragging their 
nets. 

And there by the side of the Sea of Ti- 
berias, as the morning sun from across the 
lake was lighting up the gray hills of Galilee, 
the Christ and His loved ones were in sweet 
converse, just as if the horrors of the Passion 
had never broken the peace of their fellow- 



THE PEIMATE 119 



ship. Then whilst the looks of the wonder- 
ing Apostles centred themselves upon Christ 
and Peter, "Jesus saith to Simon Peter: 
Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more 
than these ? He saith to Him : Tea, Lord, 
thou knowest that I love thee." 1 Ah, 
Peter had well learned his lesson of humility. 
Before, in face of the warning of Christ, he 
had preferred himself to all the rest, when 
there was question of loyal devotedness to 
the Master, and had said: " Although all 
shall be scandalized in thee, I will never be 
scandalized." 2 "I am ready to go with 
thee both into prison and to death." 3 Yet 
later he had ended by cursing and swearing 
that he "knew not the man." Yes, he had 
learned : and now he threw himself upon the 
love of the merciful Lord, as he said : ' ' Yea, 
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He 
saith to him : Feed my lambs. He saith to 
him again : Simon, son of John, lovest thou 
me? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, thou 
knowest that I love thee. He saith to him : 
Feed my lambs. He saith to him the third 



1 John XXI, 15 ff. 

2 Matt. XXVI, 33. 



3 Luke XXII, 33. 



120 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



time : Simon, son of John, lovest thou me ? 
Peter was grieved because He had said to 
him the third time, Lovest thou me!" 
Didn't He know? Was it another warning 
of a future unfaithfulness? Day was just 
dawning: perhaps from the distance came 
the crow of a cock, recalling the warning of 
the sad days gone by. Could it be that the 
Master foresaw another act of treasonable 
weakness? God keep him from that! So 
committing himself to the love of the Christ, 
he humbly said: "Lord, thou knowest all 
things: thou knowest that I love thee." 
1 ' Feed my sheep. ' ' And thus the Christ ful- 
filled the promise given at Caesarea Philippi, 
and made Peter the shepherd of His whole 
flock. That, as we know, means the supreme 
teaching and ruling power over all those who 
were to look to Christ as the Good Shepherd 
of their souls. 

Prom ancient usage, profane as well as 
sacred, the office of shepherding a people 
meant the kingly office of supreme rule. 
The whole flock of Christ, undershepherds 
as well as the sheep and the lambs of the 
flock, were committed to the care of Peter, 



THE PEIMATE 121 



who was to take the place of Christ in their 
midst. His was the sovereign power that 
belongs to kings; his the supreme jurisdic- 
tion of the ruler of the Kingdom of God on 
earth; his the primacy of governing sway 
over the Church of Christ. 

It is a futile evasion on the part of some 
of our separated brethren to refer these 
words of Christ to the restoration to Peter 
of the apostleship, which he is said to have 
lost by his mean denial of the Master. Peter 
did indeed deserve to lose apostleship, love, 
consideration, — everything, as the result of 
his base desertion of the Lord. But it is 
asserted without the slightest foundation of 
proof that he did lose the dignity of one of 
the chosen ones of the Master: and even if 
he had lost it, it would have been restored 
to him on the first Easter day, as Christ said 
to Peter with the rest : " As the Father hath 
sent me, I also send you." 1 

The words of appointment as shepherd of 
the fold stand forth clear and unmistakable : 
the words of promise and the words of ful- 
fillment are as the voice and the echo of the 

i John XX, 21. 



122 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



voice of the "Word made flesh." They 
made Peter the earthly head of the Church 
that Christ was leaving in His visible pres- 
ence : they constituted him the King^s vice- 
gerent over the Kingdom of God, which is 
the Church of Christ, — supreme in the teach- 
ing and ruling power over the faithful and 
over the very Apostles themselves, divinely 
appointed though these were. 

And besides, this primacy of Peter was to 
continue unto the end of time, "all days even 
to the consummation of the world.' ' This 
perpetuity of the primacy is of an impor- 
tance that cannot be exaggerated. Many of 
the adversaries of the truths which we have 
been considering, have been forced by their 
fixed prejudices to deny the genuineness of 
the texts of Matthew and J ohn, or, granting 
the genuineness of the evangelists' words, to 
deny that they represent the truth of actual 
historical happenings. It is a vain attempt 
which we need not follow up here, based as 
it is on absolutely no sound critical reason 
and leading logically to the rejection of 
all scientific historical knowledge. Others 
again whose preconceived notions will not 



THE PEIMATE 123 



allow them to admit Peter's real position in 
the undying Church of Christ, persuade 
themselves that, though the primacy was in- 
deed bestowed upon Peter, it was a gift so 
personal, that it was to pass away with him 
and was not to be sent down to the ages that 
were to come as an essential part of the in- 
stitution of Christ Jesus in the constitution 
of the Church. 

But the primacy was not a gift that was 
personal in this sense. True, as Peter's 
faith may be said to have been the reason 
of the promise, so his love may be looked 
upon as the ground of the gift of the primacy 
to him, rather than to Andrew or Philip or 
James or John or any other of the Twelve. 
But the reason of the gift to anyone at all 
is to be sought in the love of the Master and 
in His wise purpose to guarantee the per- 
manent stability of His Church by this 
means rather than by any other. 

His Church was to last until the end of 
time, unchanged in all that He made essen- 
tial to it ; and the most essential of these 
essentials was the place of supreme jurisdic- 
tion given to Peter. Would the house of 



124 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



God stand firm unto the end, as Christ said 
it would ? Then must the foundation-stone 
be there forever, — and Peter is this rock. 
Would the Church of the Master live on, un- 
shaken by the attacks of the gates of hell till 
time should be no more? That was the 
pledge of the King : and the pledge would be 
made good precisely because the Church was 
built on Peter, who must remain forever. 
Would the lambs and the sheep of the flock 
of the Good Shepherd be guarded and guided 
and led to safe pastures and fed with nour- 
ishing food until the final separation of the 
good from the bad? The Savior said that 
it would be so ; He left Peter to shepherd the 
whole flock until the day of consummation : 
— and so to the end he must be at the head 
of the flock with supreme pastoral authority. 

Peter, the fisherman, the son of John, was 
to pay the debt of nature : glorified with his 
perfect following of the Master, he was to 
pass through the gates of death from the 
blood-stained cross. But Peter, the primate 
of the Kingdom of the King, the vicegerent 
of Christ the Lord, was to live forever in his 
successors unto the end, supreme in jurisdic- 



THE PEIMATE 125 



tion, supreme in teaching power for the 
guarding of the truth. 

Yes, Peter's perpetual primacy means also 
Peter's unending infallibility. This infalli- 
bility of Christ's vicar upon earth does not 
mean that he can do no evil or that he is 
free from the possibility of even monstrous 
sins : it does not mean that he is omniscient 
or that he receives forever the inspiration 
of the Spirit of God : it does not mean that 
he has a power of miracles which might stag- 
ger the imagination. No ; but it does mean 
that, whenever through the lapse of the cen- 
turies Peter speaks to all the Church of 
Christ as supreme teacher and ruler and 
with the plenitude of his apostolic power 
demands the unconditioned assent of the 
faithful to the revelation of God, he is 
through the unfailing promise of Christ and 
by the assistance of the Holy Ghost pre- 
served from the possibility of error. 

So, because the words of Christ cannot 
fail, somewhere in this old world of ours 
Peter is ruling and teaching the Church of 
Christ: somewhere he is sustaining on the 
rock-foundation the house of God that will 



126 CHBIST'S MASTERPIECE 



never fall : somewhere he is holding the keys 
of the Kingdom: somewhere he is feeding 
the flock of Christ. Where is he? Where 
is the undying Peter? 

The question is of the highest moment to 
all. There is but one Church of Christ, to 
which all men are bound to come; but one 
Church living forever and holding the means 
of God's ordinary providence for the salva- 
tion of the world. Wherever it is, Peter is 
at its head ; for the Christ placed him there 
to rule it all days even to the consummation 
of the world. In view of this we can grasp 
the worth of our considerations with regard 
to Peter's divinely established position in 
the Church of God. 

Those too who do not hold with us recog- 
nize this importance; but they are fixed in 
their claim by the vision of what must fol- 
low, if Peter's place as perpetual primate of 
the Kingdom is acknowledged. When he 
was still outside the Catholic Church, the 
well known Thomas W. Allies said: "The 
whole question reduces itself to this, whether 
the primacy of the Pope, as it is claimed 
today, is of divine institution or not," that is, 



THE PRIMATE 127 



whether Christ made Peter the perpetual 
primate of His Kingdom or not, and we have 
seen that he did: "if it is of divine institu- 
tion, there is but one thing left for us to do 
under penalty of eternal damnation, namely, 
to submit to the Roman Pontiff." 

And the conclusion is valid; because no- 
where but in the Catholic Church can we 
find Peter ruling the flock of the Lord. The 
Roman Pontiff and he alone is the successor 
of Peter in the primacy of the Kingdom : and 
as a consequence either Christ's Church has 
perished from the earth (and to say that is 
to call Christ a liar and to be guilty of blas- 
phemy), or the Catholic Church is the one 
and only true Church of Christ. Let us 
mark this well : nowhere in God's world out- 
side of the Catholic Church is there a re- 
ligious body which claims to hold Peter's 
primacy with its final, absolute, infallible 
teaching power and supreme ruling power in 
the hands of one; and the Catholic Church 
does claim, and has always claimed this suc- 
cession for its Supreme Pontiff. 

I say, no religious body other than the 
Catholic Church claims the succession of 



128 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Peter. Many of them, in fact, deny that the 
blessed Redeemer established any society at 
all. Others deny the place of the body of 
bishops as of divine origin in the constitution 
of Christ's Church ; and such as these cannot 
and do not claim to have succession from 
him, who by the will of the Master was the 
bishop of bishops. And among the religious 
bodies which hold to episcopal succession in 
the Church of Christ, there is not one which 
proclaims itself to be under the sway of him 
who stands in Peter's place. Many of the 
episcopal churches deny the primacy of 
Peter himself : others, seeing that they can- 
not reject his primacy, will not admit that 
this supreme jurisdiction was to go on "all 
days even to the consummation of the 
world. ' ' Only once through all the centuries 
that have passed has anyone save the Roman 
Pontiff dared to claim for himself this 
sacred eminence of absolute sway in the 
things which touch the Christian life. That 
was when Photius in the ninth century, led 
on by pride of plaoe, was hardy enough to 
claim to hold from Peter, because he was the 
bishop of Constantinople, the New Rome to 



THE PEIMATE 129 



which the head of the Empire had been 
transferred. 

In face of this contention, if seriously put 
forward, there would be need of more inti- 
mate examination of the titles on which the 
claim was based. But even that examina- 
tion is not rigorously demanded now. For 
now no one claims the place of Peter; and 
therefore no one holds the place of Peter, 
outside of the Church, which is called Cath- 
olic, or, by way of description, Roman Cath- 
olic. Now if Christ made Peter the per- 
petual primate of His Kingdom, — and we 
have seen that He did; and if Peter must 
have a successor in his place until the end 
of time, — and he must ; and if that successor 
is as a consequence actually ruling the one 
true Church of Christ in the world, — and he 
is ; and if none of the Christian bodies, other 
than the Catholic Church, even claim to have 
that successor of Peter at their head, — and 
they do not : then it follows as the night the 
day that they are not the true Church of 
Christ, and that therefore the Catholic 
Church is His true Church. 

Whilst they do not claim the primacy, the 



130 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Catholic Church claims and has always 
claimed the succession of Peter : through the 
living Peter she has exercised supreme juris- 
diction from the earliest days. In the years 
of the Apostles' ministration, in the time of 
special manifestation of heavenly wonders 
in the primitive Church, there was not so 
much need for the actual exercise of the pre- 
rogative of Peter ; but when the need arose, 
the consciousness of the power, which had 
forever abode within the breast of the 
Church of Christ, spoke forth in unmistak- 
able terms and was hearkened to by the 
Christian world. 

The Pope has always ruled as the suc- 
cessor of Peter ; and the line runs back un- 
broken from Benedict XV to Peter, who 
held from Christ. Benedict XV, Pius X, 
Leo XIII, Pius IX, Gregory XVI, Pius 
VIII, Leo XII, Pius VII— and back of that, 
as the non-Catholic Macaulay puts it, "we 
trace the line in an unbroken series from the 
Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nine- 
teenth century to the Pope who crowned 
Pepin in the eighth ; and far beyond the time 



THE PEIMATE 131 



of Pepin the august dynasty extends, until 
it is lost in the twilight of fable." (Had 
he said, "the twilight of history," he had 
told the truth.) He continues: "She saw 
the commencement of all the governments 
and all the ecclesiastical institutions that 
now exist in the world, and we feel no as- 
surance that she is not destined to see the 
end of them all. She was great and re- 
spected before the Saxon set foot in Britain, 
before the Frank had passed the Ehine, when 
Greek eloquence still flourished in Antioch, 
when idols were still worshiped in the temple 
at Mecca. And she may still exist" (nay, 
we say with complete certainty, she will ex- 
ist, if the world lasts so long), "when some 
traveler from New Zealand shall, in the 
midst of a vast solitude, take his stand upon 
a broken arch of London bridge to sketch the 
ruins of St. Paul's." 1 

All through the ages Eome has taught the 
world : all through the ages she has ruled the 
Church of Christ; for her head, the Pope, 
spoke with the voice of Peter, — nay, he was 

l Macaulay. Essay on Von Rmke. 



132 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Peter, living on in deathless life until the 
coming of the Master at the end of human 
things. 

There, then, is the blessed truth, big with 
consequences. The King made Peter the 
primate of His Kingdom, with the power of 
teaching with infallible voice and of ruling 
with supreme sway the souls of all the chil- 
dren of the Kingdom until time shall be no 
more. Because the divine King must be true 
to His pledged word, that hallowed Church 
of His must be and is somewhere in the 
world; and at its head, doing the work of 
the shepherd of the whole flock, stands Peter, 
undying in his exercise of sovereign power. 
He is the visible head of that one true 
Church, which is necessary to all men in 
order that they may come to the joys of 
eternal life. And that Peter today is the 
Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, the 
white-robed shepherd of Christ's flock, who 
from the imprisonment of the Vatican ex- 
tends his fatherly rule over the whole Chris- 
tian world. Where he is, there and there 
only is Christ's true Church. 

Before the whole world that Church of 



THE PEIMATE 133 



Christ, which is none other than the Catholic 
Church, stands forth at the right hand of 
the King as the glorious queen, glowing with 
splendor, surrounded with the variety of 
wondrous adornment, — the queen sublime in 
her majesty and her heavenly power. But 
through the glory of the queen there shines 
the tenderness of the mother. From the 
depths of her eyes, regal in their magnifi- 
cence, there gleams the love-light of the best 
of friends and the charm of the yearning 
affection of Christ 's Bride. She has brought 
forth to her Spouse the children of God, who 
had been but the sons and daughters of men : 
she holds them fast to her throbbing heart 
and keeps them safe from the attacks, which 
would wrest them from the sway of Him who 
died that they might live. 

Oh, may we who have the unspeakable 
happiness and honor of being the children of 
that Church prize this blessed privilege 
above all the treasures of earth ! And may 
those who know her not and in their ignor- 
ance look upon her with indifference, if not 
with undisguised hatred, come to see in her 
the Mother who loves them, and may they 



134 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



fly to the protection of her sheltering arms ! 
They will find Christ with her ; and they will 
find her, where they find the Roman Pontiff, 
who as Peter's successor is the primate of 
the Kingdom. 



LECTUEE V 



THE SEAL OF THE KING'S SIGNET 

Another viewpoint. "Warning as to controversial pur- 
pose. A parable and its application. Two tests. 
The moral norm. Sanctity. Its meaning and 
grades. Is a note. Not found in non-Catholic 
churches. Their principles and practice. Holi- 
ness of Catholic Church. The juridical crite- 
rion: apostolicity with unity in catholicity. 
Christ's will. Application: non-hierarchical 
Protestant churches: Episcopal churches: Greek 
churches. Catholic Church. Same conclusion. 

In our reflections about the primacy of 
Peter we looked into the very heart of the 
Church established by Christ. He built 
that Church upon Peter, the Rock : He gave 
to him the keys of His Kingdom on earth : 
He made the humble Galilean fisherman the 
shepherd of His flock, the primate of His 
Kingdom until the end of time. From this 
knowledge of what the Master did we were 
already enabled to find where His true 
Church is, and to see that it is the Roman 
Catholic Church alone, since only in this 
Church is found the supreme rule of Peter. 

135 



136 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Still, though the matter is already settled, 
let us look at the same thing from another 
viewpoint. Without directly referring to 
the primacy of Peter, let us examine the sub- 
ject from another angle and see in another 
way where one is to find the only true 
Church of Christ, which all men are bound 
to enter as they value their immortal souls. 
May God grant that from this consideration 
those of us who are of the dear old Church 
may love her more generously and cling to 
her more loyally; and that those who have 
not seen her in the beauty, which is hers 
by the gift of the King, may recognize 
her at last and come to the motherly arms 
stretched out to clasp them to her great 
heart ! 

The study is of necessity a controversial 
one; and I do not like controversy. I do 
not like it, because in it one is forced to say 
things which, though uttered in the fulness 
of charity, may wound some hearts, and may 
unwittingly cause some of the bitterness that 
may wrap one up in self and keep him from 
following after the truth. Let me premise 
right at the outset that I do not intend to 



THE KING'S SIGNET 137 



hurt any sincere soul; that I speak, as the 
Apostle of the Gentiles spoke, because "the 
charity of Christ presseth me/' 1 and be- 
cause I too, though in a lesser way, may say 
with the same Apostle, "Woe is unto me, if I 
preach not the Gospel." 2 If one may ex- 
claim in all honesty of purpose, "Let justice 
be done, though the heavens fall," surely we 
may say with sincere charity, "Let the truth 
be known, though bleeding hearts repine," 
the more so as this truth is necessary for the 
well-being of even those who are pained. 

Let me begin with a little story or parable. 
There was once a great king who loved his 
people well. For them he thought; for 
them he labored; for them he fought; for 
them he was prepared to die. And it came 
to pass that the king had to go upon a 
journey into a far off country, where for 
long he would be kept from the people of 
his heart's love. During his absence his 
people were to spread out over the earth, and 
as they advanced they were to carry with 
them the blessings of the king's sway. 

ill. Cor. V, 14. 
21. Cor. IX, 16. 



138 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



So, before his departure the king called his 
people together and gave them his words of 
love and counsel; and he appointed over 
them those who would hold his place and 
would do for them even as he had been doing 
through the glad days of his sojourning 
among them. "Look you," he said, "peo- 
ple of my heart's love ! To those who are to 
rule in my name and with my power I will 
give a talisman that bears the mark which 
all may read. When you shall find this sign 
stamped upon their credentials, know that 
they are mine, and render unto them the love 
and obedience which you hold for me. And 
the sign ? Behold the sign ! ' ' Then he took 
from his finger the signet-ring, which 
gleamed thereon, and he stamped with its 
seal the sign which all were to recognize as 
the mark of his sending. This seal gave he 
to each and all, that they might discern his 
messengers from those who without his 
sending would pose in a false authority. 
"Look to the seal of my signet! Compare 
the credentials of those who claim your al- 
legiance with the image stamped with the 
seal of my signet. Thus shall you know who 



THE KING'S SIGNET 139 



are from me and who are impostors." And 
the king departed from their midst. 

Years passed; and many came to his peo- 
ple and claimed to be the envoys of the king. 
But those who were wise unmasked the pre- 
tenders by the image stamped by the signet 
of the king: and others through their folly 
were led away to cleave to false leaders : and 
other some would not make use of the sign 
of the king, nor would they admit the power 
of the validly authorized messengers of their 
lord. But some day the king would return 
and demand a reckoning from all for the 
years of their service. Then would he give 
to each according to his merit : to the faith- 
ful, honor and glory; to the foolish, rejec- 
tion; to the obstinate, the casting out from 
his kingdom unto the end of days. 

This parable is so plain as scarcely to 
mask the reality. Christ is the King forever 
and forever : He went unto the glory of the 
Father, leaving behind Him those who were 
to carry on His mission : He established His 
Church, which was to bring men to the ever- 
lasting joys of His Father's home. With 
the signet-ring of His royal sway He 



140 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



stamped upon that Church the marks which 
were to proclaim her as His very own. The 
sign which He stamped with His signet He 
made known to all His dear ones, and told 
all to compare the credentials with the sign 
which they knew. Thus they would be able 
to distinguish the true from the false : thus 
they would know which was His one, true, 
necessary Church, that they might embrace 
it and cling to it forever. 

Let us look at this "Seal of the Bang's 
Signet let us see what His Church must 
be ; and with all this before our eyes let us 
examine the credentials of the rival claim- 
ants to our allegiance. There are two parts 
to the image of the seal; the one affording 
a moral test ; the other, a juridical criterion 
of the true Church of Christ. I call the 
first a moral test, because it has to do with 
virtue and moral uprightness: I name the 
other a juridical criterion, since it is con- 
cerned with jurisdiction and the right of 
ruling. The first is the mark of sanctity; 
the second is the note of Apostolic succes- 
sion, proved legitimate by catholic unity. 

To begin with, let us reflect on the note of 



THE KING'S SIGNET 141 



sanctity, that peculiar quality essential to 
the Church of the Master and leading one to 
the recognition of that Church as the veri- 
table handiwork of the King. Sanctity 
means union with God or likeness to God, 
who is absolute uprightness and holiness in- 
finite. Inanimate things are holy by rea- 
son of their being set aside for special union 
with God or godly rites. Thus a chalice is 
holy or a church edifice is holy, as being offi- 
cially dedicated to the honor of the Most 
High. Human beings are holy by their 
union with God through knowledge and 
love. As we know from God's revelation, 
in this order of divine providence men are 
knitted unto God by faith and hope and 
charity, and by the sanctifying grace which 
makes them God-like, brothers and sisters 
of the Christ, who is the first-born among 
many brethren. 

There are various degrees of this holiness. 
There is ordinary exterior respectability and 
the fulfillment of the duties which go to 
make an honest, upright man, who pays his 
debts, is true to his friends, cares for his 
family, — and the like. Then there is a 



142 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



higher holiness, which consists in victory 
over clamorous passions, in the constant 
tending to the heights of moral worth, in 
zeal for procuring the better things for one- 
self and for others. And finally at the very 
apex of human striving for the divine there 
is the heroic sanctity, which spends itself in 
love for God and man in the most difficult 
and unremitting sacrifice, even in actions 
from which poor weak nature shrinks back 
in horror. 

Now, the holiness which Christ stamped 
upon the Church with His royal signet-ring 
is the transcendent holiness, which goes be- 
yond the possibility of mere human power 
even when aided by God's ordinary super- 
natural helps and therefore calls for the 
special and extraordinary intervention of 
divine grace, and which as a testimony of 
God Himself marks out the Church as His 
own specially beloved, His one true Church 
forever. The ordinary honesty and upright- 
ness of common virtue does not thus rise 
above the powers of nature, especially when 
nature is aided by the usual helps from God : 
and hence it is not to it that appeal is to be 



THE KING'S SIGNET 143 



made, when there is question of proving the 
credentials of Christ's legates. In certain 
generous souls higher holiness may not be 
beyond the reach of their earnest efforts, 
especially in isolated acts; nay, some souls 
of nobler calibre and in circumstances which 
appeal to the best instincts of a noble heart 
may rise to transitory acts of heroism in the 
cause of God. So, appeal is not made to 
this kind of sanctity. But the presence of 
this higher sanctity of self-abnegation and 
devotedness, found steadily and persever- 
ingly in a great and notable number, and 
the presence of heroic sanctity in some souls ; 
and the existence of all this in a constant 
and permanent manner, which exists in vir- 
tue of the doctrinal and sacramental prin- 
ciples of the Church that mothers them and 
which marks this holiness out as the social 
good of that Church, — this is something 
above the power of nature in itself and even 
when possessed of God's ordinary assist- 
ance. Then too this holiness may even be 
confirmed by miracles wrought by God ; but 
whether so confirmed by physical miracles 
or not, it is in itself a moral miracle. It can 



144 CHEIST'S MASTERPIECE 



come only from God; and its splendor en- 
ables, nay, forces one to exclaim, "The 
finger of God is here." 

This is the holiness which Christ estab- 
lished His Church to engender and foster: 
this is the moral seal stamped by the King's 
signet. Where we find this holiness, there 
and there only do we find the true Church 
of Christ. This statement must, of course, 
be proved ; but the proof is not hard to find. 

Can we doubt that Christ willed that His 
Church should bring forth these fruits of 
holiness from the tree of sacred doctrine 
and blessed sacramental rites that bear with 
them the strength of love divine? Surely 
not. We have only to hearken to the Mas- 
ter, when in the Gospel of the Kingdom He 
urges His own to the blessedness of humility, 
of chastity unsullied by stain even of 
thought, of entire devotedness to the Father 
who is in heaven. We have only to listen 
to Him, as He gives the invitation to the 
greater souls of His nobler followers to 
spurn the riches of earth for the treasures 
of heaven, to forego the sacred joys of fam- 
ily life for the martyr-like heroism of volun- 



THE KING'S SIGNET 145 



tary celibate chastity, to break the proud 
spirit of human independence by loyal sub- 
mission to the yoke of obedience according 
to the evangelical counsels. We have only 
to open the ears of our hearts as He calls 
for a love, which will brave the horrors of 
death itself for loyalty to Him and for the 
spread of His Kingdom. With eyes opened 
wide by love we have only to look to the 
lesson which He gives, as He invites us to 
come after Him. Whither does He go ? He 
goes forth upon His way of unresting weari- 
ness in search of the lost sheep ; He travels 
the road of love, unrequited by the scornful 
ones who reject Him; and after the horrors 
of His agony and scourging and crowning, 
after the fainting bearing of His cross He 
reaches the rock of Calvary and offers His 
life in the excess of love. 

And this holiness, which must follow upon 
the desires and prayers and sacrifices of the 
King, was to be a light 1 to the feet of the 
wanderer to lead him home. This trans- 
cendence of moral worth was to be like a 
city on the mountain side which could not 

iMdtt. V ? 14, 



146 CHKIST'S MASTERPIECE 



be hid : 1 it was to be a sign which would 
show men that the Father had sent the 
Christ, and that the Christ had sent His 
own to continue His work. 2 Men would rec- 
ognize this holiness in its acts, which would 
mount beyond the power of human endeavor 
and could not be explained by motives of 
human perversity, such as pride, ambition, 
and the like. They would recognize it 
without a long process of intricate thought, 
but by a concrete judgment which is almost 
a sort of moral intuition, like the clairvoy- 
ance of children. 

This, then, is the seal of holiness which 
must be found stamped on the one true 
Church of the King. Where do we find it? 
In humility of heart and in honesty of vision 
that question must be answered. Where do 
we find it? Now, without the slightest 
touch of uncharitableness, without the faint- 
est approach to the Pharisaical spirit of "I 
thank thee, Lord, I am not as other men," 
it must be said, since truth demands it, that 
it is found nowhere but in the Catholic 

iMatt. V, 14-16. 
2 John XVII, 17-21. 



THE KING'S SIGNET 



147 



Church, and that therefore by this moral 
test the Catholic Church is proved to be the 
one true Church of Christ, which all are 
bound to embrace. 

The Protestant churches and the Oriental 
churches, called " orthodox," have it not. 
Heaven forbid that we should assert that 
they do not possess the ordinary virtue, 
which marks men out as honest, upright, sin- 
cere, estimable, honorable before God and 
man. What is more, in many of the mem- 
bers of these churches there are found 
permanent moral levels which are above 
common holiness ; nay, there are found some 
who, helped by the grace which is never 
wanting to men of good will, may perform 
deeds of heroic moral worth in conditions 
and circumstances which appeal to the no- 
bility of their lofty souls. 

All this we admit. But we do not find 
this higher virtue in a great and striking 
number ; and we seek in vain for the heroic 
sanctity in some of their children, in such a 
constant and continuous manifestation as 
is the outcome of the doctrinal principles 
and means of grace in the keeping of these 



148 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



churches. As for the heroic sanctity of 
their members we look in vain for " saints," 
whose holiness has been established after 
most rigorous and searching examination. 
And the confirmation of this holiness by 
miracles, to which, though not of necessity, 
one might with full justice appeal, relying 
on the words of Christ that " signs shall fol- 
low those who believe" 1 in Him? They 
have no thought of appealing to such testi- 
monies of heaven : nay, not a few look upon 
such miracles as beyond the limits of truth, 
if not beyond the field of possibility. 

And as for the higher sanctity, which 
means the abnegation of some of the sweet- 
est joys of life in the following of the evan- 
gelical counsels, where shall we find in these 
churches the legions and legions of religi- 
ous men and women, vowed to the mystic life 
of contemplation or to the thousand forms of 
devoted service of man for the love of God % 
The very principles, from which the older 
forms of Protestantism sprang, by sheer 
force of necessity worked havoc with the 
very effort to rise above the commonplace in 

iMark XVI, 17. 



THE KING'S SIGNET 149 



the service of God. The doctrine of " faith 
without good works" passed like a destroy- 
ing breath of poisonous wind across the souls 
of thousands, and left behind it the wreck 
of expiring love. Works of supererogation 
became useless, if not positively hurtful as 
tending to the exaltation of human pride: 
the following of the counsels of Christ in the 
religious life became a folly, if not a thing 
accursed : the practice of the highest virtues 
fell into disrepute. 

Even the churches, which did not hold to 
this doctrine that is the death of noble striv- 
ing for God, by their servile dependence 
upon the civil power were forced into a con- 
flict against the higher life of religious ob- 
servances. And today when some of the 
Protestant churches, like the Anglican com- 
munion, are making an effort to recall the 
nobility of the supreme sacrifice of all things 
for Christ; when they urge men to works 
that are not demanded except by the fervor 
of consuming love; in particular, when, as 
some are doing with wholehearted gener- 
osity, they try to bring in again the practice 
of the gospel invitation in the exercises of 



150 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



6 6 the life in religion," they are doing so in 
opposition to the principles which gave them 
birth, and in evident imitation of the Cath- 
olic Church. 

So much for the Protestant churches. 
The Oriental churches'? These churches 
have no " saints" whose sanctity stands forth 
from the acid test of searching examination. 
As for the life of the counsels, which was 
once their glory and which continued to 
thrive with considerable vitality for some 
time after their separation from Rome, this 
has withered like a shoot cut off from the 
parent stock. And with regard to their 
later state and their present condition, per- 
haps the best thing for us to do in the spirit 
of charity is to close the eyes and ears of the 
soul to the harrowing accounts of creditable 
witnesses as to the laxity and moral perver- 
sion of vast numbers of those who profess 
the higher life. 

Once more, both the Protestant and 
Oriental churches have ordinary holiness 
with scattered instances of lives of higher 
sanctity and occasional deeds of heroic 
moral worth. But the transcendence of 



THE KING'S SIGNET 151 



holiness, stamped on His Church by the 
signet-ring of the King, they have not ; and 
hence they are not His one true Church. 

On the other hand, — we say it with all 
humility, though with loving reverence, — 
the Catholic Church has this mark of the 
King. True, many of her children are un- 
worthy of their Mother and a scandal to 
their f ellowmen. Yet this is not because of 
her teaching and because of her lack of 
moral uplifting power: it is in spite of all 
this. The dear Master foreknew and fore- 
told this sad fact. He spoke of it with bit- 
ter sorrow of heart during the days of His 
mortal life, when He beheld the hardness 
of soul of many of the disciples and felt the 
sting of the treachery of the " devil" among 
the Twelve and grieved over the evil lives 
of many who would call Him King. The 
lives of such unworthy children stain His 
Church; but even with these stains she is 
splendid with the transcendent virtue which 
is the mark of the King's signet. The 
heaven-born holiness of her sacred doctrine 
and salutary laws, and the fulness of the 
streams of grace which flow from her sac- 



152 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



ramental fountains have wrought their ef- 
fect. 

In her we see whole armies of souls, vowed 
to the higher life of the evangelical counsels, 
laboring with ardor kindled at the Heart of 
Christ, striving for the glory of God and for 
the betterment of mankind and for the care 
of all who suffer from any of the countless 
ills of humanity. In her we see the glori- 
ous ranks of the saints of God, with their 
sanctity established in its heroicity by the 
severest of tests, not to speak of the con- 
firmation of heaven itself in God's miracul- 
ous testification to their exalted moral worth. 
We behold all this, not in sporadic mani- 
festations or in isolated instances, but in a 
perpetual continuity which raises it above 
the possibility of mere human endeavor, 
above the attainment of nature with the com- 
mon helps from above. 

Nay, at the very period, at which, ac- 
cording to her enemies, the Church was cor- 
rupted and buried beneath foul heaps of 
moral degradation, we find her shining in a 
glory of holiness as great as any that the 
world has witnessed from the beginning. 



THE KING'S SIGNET 153 

The mere catalogue of the saints at the very 
time of the so-called Reformation is over- 
whelming in its length and its magnificence. 
An Ignatius Loyola with a heart like that 
of the Apostle of the Gentiles; a Francis 
Xavier who brought hundreds of thousands 
of infidels to the feet of the Master; a 
Charles Borromeo, the model of zealous, 
self -forgetful pastors of Christ's Church; 
an Aloysius, a Stanislaus, and a Berchmans, 
the flower of Christian youth and the pat- 
terns of unstained purity; a Theresa with 
the soul of a seraph, the zeal of an apostle, 
and the heroism of a martyr ; a John of the 
Cross with the penitential spirit of John the 
Baptist and the contemplative union of love 
of Francis of Assisi ! So too it was before 
that storm-tossed age: so it has been ever 
since: so it is today. 

And all this is not in spite of the principles 
of the Church, but is the outgrowth of her 
doctrine and the fruit of her means of sanc- 
tification. Before this glory, which is 
greater than any that earth can attain ; be- 
fore this spiritual elevation of those who, 
bearing the weakness of our frail mortality, 



154 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



rose to the heights of virtue humanly inac- 
cessible, we must, if we do not close our eyes 
to the light of heaven as it streams upon 
us from their transfigured persons, — we 
must, I say, bow down with humble rever- 
ence and exclaim, 6 4 The finger of God is 
here." 

This, then, is the moral test; and by the 
application of this one mark of the signet of 
the King the Catholic Church is proved 
to be the one true Church of Christ the Lord. 
But there is another mark, or combination 
of marks, stamped by the King upon His 
Church. As the preceding note of sanctity 
had to do with virtue, so this one has refer- 
ence to authority or jurisdiction; and hence 
as the former was a moral test, this is a 
juridical criterion. I refer to apostolicity 
with the unity and catholicity which prove it 
to be legitimate. 

After our former considerations it is 
hardly necessary to recur to the fact that 
Christ gave to the Twelve the power of rul- 
ing the Church with authoritative jurisdic- 
tion derived from Him, and that this power 
is to go on to the end of time. The Apostolic 



THE KING'S SIGNET 155 



College's fulness of priestly power unto the 
sanctification of souls was also to be with- 
out end. This, however, as being part of 
the mysterious force transmitted by the sac- 
rament of Orders need not be considered 
now: and furthermore, the sacraments do 
not show where the Church is; the Church 
shows where the true sacraments are. The 
Twelve, then, were to have successors in the 
government of the Church through all the 
years. It is precisely this unbroken suc- 
cession in Apostolic sway, which is the mark 
to which I am now referring. 

It is part of Christ's will in regard to His 
Church that there be an unbroken line of 
spiritual rulers ; that those who succeed take 
the place of those who have gone before to 
fulfill the same functions, and that they de- 
mand obedience from all by reason of the 
same title as did their predecessors, namely, 
the will of the Master. Without such a suc- 
cession a church cannot be the Church of 
the Apostles, and hence cannot be the 
Church of Christ. First and foremost, of 
course, material continuity of succession is 
altogether necessary; yet this succession, 



156 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



thus materially unbroken, must be proved to 
be legitimate. Now the legitimacy of suc- 
cession is made certain by catholicity in un- 
ity, which as a moral miracle goes beyond 
the attainment of human power, and is the 
testimony of God's sanction guaranteeing 
that the succession holds the power given by 
Christ to the chosen Twelve. 

To one who has grasped the intention of 
the blessed Lord it is as clear as the light of 
day that there must be unity in the Church 
of Christ. Unity of doctrine, unity of wor- 
ship in its essential character, unity of gov- 
ernment, — all these must be present in the 
Church which is truly the Master's. Faith 
itself is an internal thing which cannot be 
seen: even the profession of faith in de- 
tailed, explicit declaration of all and the 
same points of belief may be almost impos- 
sible of verification in a large community. 
But the unity, to which I refer as a thing 
essential to the Church of Christ and at the 
same time as something easily ascertained, 
consists in this, that all the faithful profess 
subjection to one authoritative teaching 



THE KING'S SIGNET 157 



body and to one ruling power of jurisdic- 
tion. 

Now, with His royal signet-ring Christ 
stamped this mark upon His Church. For 
He instituted a teaching power to which all 
men were bound to submit in unrestricted 
dependence in all matters touching divine 
revelation : and hence He demanded that all 
the faithful should profess subjection to this 
one teaching power. And, let us note it 
well once more, the teaching power estab- 
lished by the Christ is an authoritative and 
obligatory one. It must have the right and 
the brave fidelity to duty to give a final and 
binding decision in matters within the sphere 
of its competence : nay, if it is Christ's teach- 
ing body, it must claim for itself the right 
of pronouncing on God's revelation with in- 
fallible voice which demands the uncondi- 
tioned and absolute assent of the faithful. 
Moreover, to this teaching-body Christ gave 
jurisdiction over the souls of the faithful to 
lead them to their heavenly home ; and as a 
consequence of this institution of Christ's 
the faithful must profess submission to this 



158 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



one power of spiritual sway. All this is 
now quite familiar to us ; for we studied it 
as we were considering the Great Charter 
of the Kingdom. 

And furthermore, according to the will 
of its Founder, the Church of Christ is a 
society, which with this unity forever pre- 
served must reach out to men and lands and 
nations in such a wide-spread diffusion that 
it must be called and must be "catholic" or 
universal. It was not to be confined within 
the limits of a country or a nation : it was to 
be world-wide. There would indeed always 
be some who would refuse to have part with 
Christ in His Kingdom; but He sent His 
own to the whole world, and by His power 
their work would have effect in a striking 
universality. "Teach ye all nations": 1 
"Preach ye the gospel to every creature": 2 
"You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusa- 
lem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even 
to the uttermost parts of the earth." 3 

It follows from the institution of Christ 
that a church, which is only national, is not 



iMatt. XXVIII, 19. 
2 Mark XVI, 15. 



3 Acts I, 8. 



THE KING'S SIGNET 159 



Christ's Church; it follows also that a 
church, which is dependent upon the civil 
power as an adjunct of the state, cannot be 
His Church ; for in the last analysis such a 
church is by practical necessity merely na- 
tional, and is not the perfect society which 
Christ founded to have unity in universal- 
ity. 

Here, then, we have the other mark 
stamped upon His Church by the signet of 
the King, — unbroken succession from the 
Apostles in the jurisdiction of teaching and 
ruling the souls of men, and this succession 
proved legitimate by the divine approbation, 
which is made manifest by the moral miracle 
of catholic unity and united catholicity. 
So, once again, let us examine the churches 
which claim to be His, and let us see by 
this note whether their credentials are such 
as to show forth the seal of the King. 

Beginning with apostolicity of succession 
in the teaching office and ruling power in- 
stituted by Christ, we may first look at the 
churches which may be called the non- 
hierarchical or non-episcopal churches. 
Such are the Lutherans, Presbyterians, 



160 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Methodists, Baptists and the like. For 
the members of these churches I have 
nothing but the sincerest charity, and 
against them personally I do not utter 
a word of harshness or bitterness. But the 
truth must stand ; and the truth is that these 
bodies do not even make a pretence to possess 
Apostolic succession in jurisdictional sway 
over the souls of men by the authority of 
Christ our Lord. For these churches do not 
admit that Christ instituted such a hier- 
archy. The authority of their ministers 
and " superintendents" is an authority of 
human quality. They make no claim to a 
divine commission from Christ; and hence 
to speak of them as possessing this Apostolic 
jurisdiction in unbroken continuity from the 
Twelve would be almost an impertinence. 
Yet by the ordinance of the King they must 
have this unbroken succession, or they can- 
not be the Church instituted by the Master. 

If we look at the churches which hold to 
the divinely instituted power of the epis- 
copacy, as do the Episcopalian and Anglican 
churches, we cannot find among them any- 
thing more than the faintest shadow of this 



THE KING'S SIGNET 161 



unbroken succession from Christ's Apos- 
tles. They do indeed claim that their 
bishops hold the place of the Apostles: yet 
it is a case not of succession, but of rebellion. 
That one may be the successor of another 
it is necessary that he be substituted in the 
place of the other to fulfill the same func- 
tions and by reason of the same principle of 
authority. 

Now, if we look at these churches, we see 
that they have essentially modified the no- 
tion of episcopal ministration and the prin- 
ciple of their accession to power. I am not 
speaking of the " power of orders": that is 
too recondite to allow of a hurried judg- 
ment. I am speaking of the power of jur- 
isdiction. And in this regard there has been 
in these churches, not a substitution, but a 
revolution. The bishops prior to the so- 
called Reformation exercised their power of 
jurisdiction as the successors of the Apos- 
tles and in virtue of the authority committed 
to them by Christ without the mediation of 
any civil authority. Since the time of the 
Reformation the bishops in the English 
Church perform their episcopal functions as 



162 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



the spiritual delegates of the State and in 
virtue of powers committed to them by the 
civil authorities. In Norway, Sweden, and 
Denmark there are churches which are 
Episcopal after a fashion : at least there are 
officials who are called bishops. Still as 
these churches are Lutheran in their origin 
and tenets, they cannot logically defend the 
position of their bishops as of divine insti- 
tution: and besides, these churches, as be- 
ing entirely national and of but very lim- 
ited extension, may be passed by without 
any further consideration. In the United 
States too, where the bishops of the Anglican 
Church claim some shadowy union of char- 
ity with Canterbury, there are Episcopal 
churches. However, these are at best but 
parts or offshoots of the Church of England, 
and even if they do not necessarily stand 
if it stands, they must fall if it falls. And 
that church falls; for the bishops of the 
Church of England do not succeed in vir- 
tue of the same principle of authority 
as their predecessors; and therefore the 
Reformation of the sixteenth century was 
not a succession or a substitution; it was a 



THE KING'S SIGNET 163 



revolution and a rebellion. As a conse- 
quence the Protestant Episcopal bodies have 
not an unbroken line of succession from the 
Apostles, even if that succession be consid- 
ered in its material continuity and apart 
from the notion of its legitimacy. 

Yet, although they had this material suc- 
cession (which they have not) , it would not 
be a legitimate succession in their case any 
more than it is in the case of the Oriental 
churches called "orthodox." These latter 
have indeed this succession in its material 
continuity: but they together with the 
Protestant Episcopal churches are proved 
to be illegitimate claimants by the lack of 
the marks of unity and catholicity. 

The Church of Christ must preach the 
doctrines of the Master, which are so much 
against the weakness of fallen human na- 
ture and so much opposed to man's ingrained 
love of independent activity, and she relies 
on spiritual and moral means for guarding 
subjection to her sway. As has been re- 
marked before, the fact of the universal, 
yet unified expansion of such a Christian 
body is a thing that goes beyond the attain- 



164 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



ment of human means and calls for the 
extraordinary intervention of divine power ; 
and the moral miracle of this divine inter- 
vention testifies to the legitimacy of succes- 
sion, wherever it is found. Now, this un- 
ity in universality is not found in any of 
the non-Catholic churches, whether Protes- 
tant or Oriental. 

Look at the question of unity. The cardi- 
nal principle of the Reformation stood for 
the exclusion of any intermediary between 
the human conscience and God and for the 
supremacy of private judgment. But this 
principle is necessarily subversive of any 
authoritative and supreme power for teach- 
ing and ruling with divine sanction. 
Neither do the Episcopal churches come 
much nearer to the realization of this seal 
of the King's signet. 

In fact among all the Protestant churches 
there is not on earth today a church which 
will dare to give a final and authoritative 
declaration with regard to the doctrine of 
Christ. Ask the highest powers in these 
churches, what must be the attitude of the 
faithful with regard to the forgiveness of 



THE KING'S SIGNET 165 



sins, the presence of Christ in the sacrament 
of the altar; and they do not dare to give 
an answer which will be binding upon all 
their members ; nor do the members of these 
churches profess submission to such a defin- 
itive and obligatory judgment. Even with 
respect to what is as fundamental to Chris- 
tianity as the divinity of Christ J esus, there 
is no unmistakable pronouncement ; and to- 
day many a minister is standing in Protes- 
tant Christian pulpits, who denies that Jesus 
Christ is very God. 

And as for the universality or catholicity 
of these churches, it is all but useless to 
give any thought to that. They are at most 
regional or national; and even when they 
are spread over many lands, they are not 
diffused as one society which acknowledges 
a central authority, that speaks with binding 
force in doctrinal or disciplinary matters. 
Nor are the Oriental churches different from 
the Protestant churches in this. They cling 
to the first seven General Councils to the 
exclusion of any living authoritative voice. 
Hence they are practically without any au- 
thentic organ of doctrinal pronouncement, 



166 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



and are therefore without the unity which 
must characterize the Church of Christ. 
And finally as for their diffusion, they are 
not the universal Church of the Master, since 
their existence outside of the Orient is so 
insignificant as to be quite negligible. 

Turn to the Catholic Church, or, by way 
of description, the Roman Catholic Church, 
and note the difference. She has gleaming 
forth from her glorious figure these splen- 
did marks stamped by the signet of the King. 
She traces the authority of her bishops back 
to the Apostolic Twelve: she points to the 
jurisdiction of her Popes in an unbroken 
line from Benedict XV back to Peter and 
to Christ the Son of God. There is no one 
in all the world who can deny that the ma- 
terial continuity of this succession is hers: 
and the legitimacy of this succession is 
proved by the presence in her communion of 
unity and catholicity. 

Surely in her we find the profession of 
submission to the one authoritative voice of 
doctrinal teaching. For as they make their 
"Act of Faith," the faithful profess that 
they "believe what the holy Catholic Church 



THE KING'S SIGNET 167 



believes and teaches": through their union 
with their bishops under the headship of the 
Pope they are ready to hold with unfalter- 
ing adhesion of mind all that is proposed by 
this teaching authority, which according to 
the promise of Christ is forever infallible 
because of the abiding presence of the Spirit 
of truth. This very submission to one au- 
thority is made a matter of reproach to them 
by those who are not of their faith. But 
true to the mandate of the King they ac- 
knowledge the teaching power and the jur- 
isdiction of the bishops and the Supreme 
Pontiff who speaks with the voice of Peter. 

And universality or catholicity? Even 
by the confession of the world at large this 
is her peculiar prerogative. Seek through- 
out all the corners of this old earth of ours ; 
and everywhere you will find this blessed 
Church doing the work of the Master, 
whether she worships in the magnificence 
of stately cathedrals or in the thatched 
chapels of the wilderness or beneath the 
open sky. She is not regional, not national, 
but is spread throughout the whole earth 
with such a diffusion and such a solidarity 



168 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of belief and government as go beyond ma- 
terial and human means of propagation. 
And all the while she remains the same visi- 
ble society, subject to the same teaching and 
ruling authority that claims to hold from 
Christ Jesus. As Cyril of Jerusalem and 
Augustine challenged the world in the 
fourth century, so she can challenge all men 
in the twentieth with the truth, that, if one 
asks for the Catholic Church, he is directed 
not to the temples of any of the sects, but to 
the place of worship of the Church which 
has won for herself the right to that glorious 
title. 

Thus the Catholic Church has this second 
mark, the juridical note of the King's sig- 
net: she alone is His true Church. And 
thus we are led to the same conclusion to 
which the consideration of Peter's primacy 
led us, — that the Roman Catholic Church 
and she alone is the one true Church of 
Christ, to which all must submit as they 
value the souls for which Christ died. Let 
those of us who have the inestimable bless- 
ing of the true faith, thank God for our un- 
deserved privilege: let us cling to it as the 



THE KING'S SIGNET 169 



greatest gift of God's love to us : let us make 
honest efforts to be worthy of this blessed 
Church, and never cast a stain upon her 
matchless purity by the evil of our lives! 
And would to God, that those who are with- 
out her sacred pale, would hearken at last 
to the Mother, who is calling to them and 
holding out to them her arms that are not 
satisfied until they clasp within their em- 
brace the children of her longing! 

Oh, that they would listen to the words 
which well up from the depths of her heart ! 
She and she alone is the one true Church 
of the Master, and she knows it. And 
hence her voice goes out to all the children 
of men with the cry of the Christ: "Come 
to me, all you that labor and are burdened, 
and I will refresh you." 1 She does not 
stand as a hard and heartless possessor of 
divine bounty; but as a loving Mother she 
yearns over her children and over those who 
are not yet her children, but must be if they 
would not turn their back upon the dear 
Christ. To the wanderers she speaks: and 
she does not say, "You are not of my fold: 

iMatt. XI, 28. 



170 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



God help you!" Never that; but with the 
Christ-like yearning of her soul, with the 
love of the King her Spouse she says, "Be 
of my fold : God bless you ! ' ' And may God 
hasten the day of the fulfillment of her lov- 
ing prayer ! 



LECTURE VI 

THE BKIDEGROOM AND HIS BRIDE 

Resume. Another proof according to Vatican Coun- 
cil. Special union between Christ and Church. 
Body of Christ. Members of Christ. Christ the 
head. His preeminence. His care for Church. 
Effects. Bride of Christ. More perfect uniori 
than in Old Law. Paul's teaching. Epistle to 
Ephesians. Mother of faithful. Church's bene- 
fits to soul : to body : to society. Relation between 
temporal and spiritual goods. Foundation of 
civilization: culture: arts: learning. Beneath 
the cross. 

We are drawing towards the end of our 
considerations on the Church of Christ. 
Before making our final reflections let us 
briefly review what we have thus far had 
before our minds and hearts. Taking the 
New Testament writings as the foundation 
of our study, especially the gospel records, 
which are of the most unquestionable his- 
torical value and truly present what actu- 
ally took place, we looked at the character 
of Jesus Christ the King. On His human 
side He was the paragon of mankind with 

171 



172 CHKIST'S MASTERPIECE 



virtues winning in their sweet sacredness, 
overwhelming in their sublime magnificence. 
He was the legate or ambassador of God to 
men, with a mission from heaven vouched 
for by proofs which must win the assent of 
everyone who follows the dictates of pru- 
dence. And He was more than this : He was 
very God, and His words and acts have 
divine authority. 

His great work was to accomplish the re- 
demption of the human race, to make pro- 
vision for the application of the fruits of 
that redemption and for the safeguard and 
propagation of His blessed revelation, when 
He Himself would have gone to the glory 
of His Father. The object of His labors 
and of His teaching was His Kingdom; — 
that Kingdom, which was the divine sway 
not merely over the separate and single souls 
of men, but in the united and exterior organ- 
ization of the children of the Kingdom gath- 
ered together in a visible, collective whole. 
That Kingdom was to have its final and 
glorious consummation in the celestial 
blessedness of endless joy; but before it 
would bring God's loved ones to the happi- 



THE BEIDE 



173 



ness of life eternal, it was first to have ai 
period of strife and trial and labor in the 
conditions of this present life. All this 
we studied in "The King and His King- 
dom." 

Under the caption of "The Great Charter 
of the Kingdom" we looked more in detail 
at the work of the King, as He founded His 
Kingdom and gave it its powers. From 
amongst His disciples Christ chose twelve 
Apostles, whom He kept close to His sacred 
person and trained with special care and 
loving forbearance. He sent them upon 
temporary missions in the training-school of 
missionary effort. And finally He gave 
them their great commission to teach all na- 
tions with power from Himself and with the 
divine promise of unfailing success in the 
work for which they were sent. That com- 
mission includes the threefold power of 
teaching, sanctifying, and ruling the souls 
of men. 

Theirs was the power of teaching with 
authority the truths entrusted to them by 
the Master: theirs, the right to demand of 
men assent of the mind in the absolute, un- 



174 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



conditioned bowing down of the intellect 
before the revelation preached by them: 
theirs, the infallible voice, divinely pre- 
served from the possibility of error in pro- 
claiming the doctrines of the blessed Christ. 
Besides this they had the power of sanctify- 
ing the souls of men, not merely by the in- 
direct influence of sacred doctrine and salu- 
tary laws, but directly by the religious rites 
instituted by Christ for the hallowing of the 
souls of His dear ones. And, thirdly, theirs 
was the power to rule the faithful in the 
realm of the soul with jurisdiction from the 
Master, who had sent them as the Father 
had sent Him. Such is the constitution of 
the Kingdom: such the powers of the true 
society, of which Christ is the founder. 

"Some Prerogatives of the Kingdom" we 
next considered. The Church, which was 
thus established by the King as a true and 
perfect society, was not to come to an end 
with the death of the Apostles. The Twelve 
were to live on in their successors until time 
would be no more, unfailing from within, 
unconquerable from without. There is but 
one such Church of the Master, but one 



THE BRIDE 175 



Kingdom of the King, without peer or rival. 
And in its unicity and its perpetual continu- 
ance this Church of Christ is necessary for 
men, in such sort that he who knows its 
claims and sees their well-founded reasons 
and who refuses to follow the will of the 
Christ made known to him, cannot hope for 
salvation. The Church is necessary by rea- 
son of the mandate of the King: it is also 
necessary as being the ordinary means of 
God's general providence for man's salva- 
tion. This means can be supplied by the 
mysterious substitutes of God's special 
providence over individual souls, but only 
in the case of inculpable impossibility of 
recourse to this means fixed by mankind's 
Redeemer. 

In studying "The Primate of the King- 
dom" we entered into the very heart of 
Christ's constitution of His Church. Each 
of the Twelve did not possess in equal meas- 
ure the powers conferred upon the Apos- 
tolic College: there was a primacy of jur- 
isdiction in the hands of one of them. The 
supreme power over all the faithful and 
over all the other Apostles was possessed 



176 CHKIST'S MASTEKPIECE 



by one, — and Peter was the primate. At 
Csesarea Philippi Christ promised him this 
prerogative, and He conferred it upon him 
by the side of the Sea of Tiberias. This 
primacy of Peter was an essential part of 
the constitution of the Church. It was not 
to pass away with the mortal life of Peter, 
but was to live forever in the deathless life 
of the Church: Peter was forever to have 
successors in his sublime dignity as the visi- 
ble head of Christ's Church. As a neces- 
sary consequence of this Peter must be some- 
where on earth; and where he is, there and 
there alone is Christ's one true Church. 
Now, it is only in the Catholic Church 
that Peter can be found; and therefore 
from this single fact it is proved that 
the Catholic Church is the one true Church 
of the Master, the only Kingdom of the 
King. 

But under still another aspect the same 
truth shines forth for those who have the 
will to see. In studying "The Seal of the 
King's Signet" we reflected upon the marks 
stamped upon His Church by the blessed 
Lord, and according to this standard we 



THE BRIDE 177 



measured the various lival claimants of the 
honor of being Christ's true Church. There 
were two sets of tests; the moral test of 
transcendent holiness, and the juridical test 
of Apostolic succession proved legitimate 
by catholic unity. These were the signs 
left by the King, as He sealed His Church 
with His royal signet. It is in the Catholic 
Church alone that these tests can be veri- 
fied ; and therefore again she and she alone 
is the one true Church of the Master. That 
is the point to which our investigations have 
led us. 

We might indeed have begun where these 
considerations ended. Instead of beginning 
with the study of what Christ actually did, 
as opposed to what He might have done or 
has been said to have done by those who are 
manipulating history for their own ends, we 
might have started by looking at the Catholic 
Church as a great and undeniable fact in 
the world, without making any comparison 
between her and other churches. There 
she stands, as she has stood for ages, in the 
splendor of a holiness which goes beyond 
the power of faltering, stumbling, feeble 



178 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



human nature; with an uninterrupted suc- 
cession of authority which claims to go 
back, and does go back, to the Apostles, with 
subordination of all the faithful to one rul- 
ing power and to one authoritative body, 
which from the promise of the Master holds 
to infallible pronouncement about the teach- 
ing of Christ ; with a universal diffusion, as 
the self-same society, through all nations 
and all civilizations; and all this in virtue 
of powers altogether spiritual and moral 
and in face of the countless shiftings of 
human societies and man's ineradicable. nat- 
ural longing for independence. Here is a 
fact: and this fact cannot be explained by 
human means : it calls for the extraordinary 
intervention of divine power; and that in- 
tervention stamps the Church with the mark 
of God's approbation. 

Yes, even though we had no gospel rec- 
ord from which to study the actual founda- 
tion made by Christ, from the study of this 
fact, which is the Catholic Church in her 
magnificent history and her stupendous 
present, we could conclude with certainty 
that she is a divine work, a divine legate, 



THE BRIDE 179 



and the organ of divine truth; that from 
her we can learn everything about her own 
constitution, about her divine Founder, His 
person, His work, His doctrine, about the 
very gospel records themselves. This is, in- 
deed, what is so clearly put before us in the 
words of the Vatican Council. The Coun- 
cil says: "Nay, the Church herself on ac- 
count of her wonderful propagation, her 
surpassing holiness and inexhaustible fe- 
cundity in all good things, on account of 
her catholic unity and unbroken stability 
is a great and perpetual motive of credibil- 
ity and an irrefragable testimony to her own 
divine mission." 1 

There, then, is Christ's Masterpiece : there 
is the Church of Christ the Lord, who is the 
revered Master and loved King of all man- 
kind: there is the Roman Catholic Church, 
His own beloved. As a conclusion to our 
reflections about this hallowed Church let 
us dwell upon some thoughts about the close 
union between Christ and that Church of 
His. For the Church is the Body of Christ ; 
she is the Bride of Christ ; she is the Mother 

iPenziger, 1794, 



180 CHRIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



of the faithful ones who are the Master's 
own. 

St. Paul bases a great part of his sublime 
dogmatic teaching upon the truth that the 
Church is the Mystic Body of Christ. Some 
see in this nothing more than a vague fig- 
urative expression signifying little. But 
though a figurative expression, it is not a 
mere figure of speech without a real founda- 
tion. No, just as it is a glorious reality that 
we are the sons of God, so too it is a magnifi- 
cent fact that the Church is related to Christ 
as the body to the head. That the Church 
should be called a moral body need excite 
no wonder ; for every society may be called 
that. And the Church by reason of its many 
members bound together by the organic con- 
stitution fixed by the Christ, by reason of 
the various functions of the members of the 
divinely constituted hierarchy, by reason of 
the unity resulting from the heaven-granted 
authority and from the mysterious opera- 
tion of grace with faith and hope and char- 
ity, is in a most special way a moral body. 
St. Paul says : 6 6 For as in one body we have 
many members, but all the members have 



THE BRIDE 181 



not the same office: so we being many, are 
one body in Christ, and everyone members 
one of another." 1 

This consideration is full of very prac- 
tical consequences, as the Apostle often 
pointed out. From this flows the mutual 
consideration which is due from each of the 
faithful to all the others; from this, the 
humility which does not exalt itself above 
its proper place; from this, the charity 
which holds together the sons and daugh- 
ters of the Church; from this, the loyalty 
to one another, which should characterize 
those thus closely bound together. 

But the Church is not only a body. It is 
the Body of Christ; and this sublime pre- 
rogative is something to give us much seri- 
ous and loving thought. It is not merely 
that Christ is called the head of the Church. 
The chief superior of any perfect, even civic, 
society, be he king or emperor or president, 
may be called the head of the nation. But 
there is no king or emperor or president of 
whom we may say that the nation is his 
body. The President is the head of our na- 

iRom. XII, 4. 



182 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



tion : but we are not his body ; for the rela- 
tion between him and us is only a moral one, 
and is not by any means a union which ap- 
proaches to the physical influence of the head 
upon the members of the body. Yet it is 
precisely this latter relationship which St. 
Paul emphasizes, when there is question of 
Christ and His Church. "Now you are the 
body of Christ, and members of member": 1 
"and He is before all and by Him all things 
consist: and He is the head of the body, 
the Church." 2 Nay, even our bodies of 
flesh belong to Christ: "Know you not, 
that your bodies are the members of Christ ? 
Shall I then take the members of Christ, 
and make them the members of a harlot? 
God forbid." 3 

Truly, here is a marvel. The faithful 
preserve their physical and natural individ- 
uality; they live their own natural and 
human life as distinct personalities: and so 
too does our blessed Lord. But in the sup- 
ernatural efforts of mind and heart and in 
the activities which count for heaven we and 

il. Cor. XII, 27. 

2 Col. I, 17. 

s I. Cor. VI, 15. 



THE BRIDE 183 



Christ live the same life, though in widely 
different degrees; we are all animated by 
the same spirit of supernatural striving, the 
blessed Spirit of God, all vivified by the sa- 
credness which flows forth from the Christ, 
"from whom the whole body being com- 
pacted and fitly joined together . . . mak- 
eth increase of the body unto the edifying 
of itself in charity." 1 It is from the grace 
of Christ Jesus that the whole Church lives. 
He vivifies all those who are possessed even 
of the radical principle of life everlasting. 
He preserves all the powers of the Church : 
He administers all the life-giving sacra- 
ments: He verifies the truth of what He 
said long ago: "I am the vine, you the 
branches . . . without me you can do noth- 
ing.' ' 2 This union with Christ, which 
makes us partake of the very divinity by 
our adoption into the sonship of God, is 
brought about and maintained chiefly 
through the sacraments, and especially by 
the sacrament of sacraments, the Holy 
Eucharist. 



lEphes. IV, 16. 
2 John XV, 5. 



184 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



By the stupendous exaltation of the hypo- 
static union Christ is raised high above all 
that is earthly. ' 6 In Him are hid all the 
treasures of wisdom and knowledge"; 1 He 
is "full of grace and truth": 2 to Him "is 
given all power in heaven and in earth"; 3 
Him did God raise "from the dead . . . set- 
ting Him on His right hand in the heavenly 
places: above principality and power and 
virtue and dominion . . . and hath sub- 
jected all things under His feet; and hath 
made Him head over all the Church, which 
is His body and the fulness of Him." 4 
Yes, glorious He is; but from His position 
of sublime magnificence He yearns over His 
Church, which He vivifies and loves for- 
ever. "Christ loved the Church and deliv- 
ered Himself up for it, that He might sanc- 
tify it . . . that He might present it to 
Himself a glorious Church, not having spot 
or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it 
might be holy and without blemish." 5 

1 Col. II, 3. 

2 John I, 14. 

3 Matt. XXVIII, 18. 
* Ephes. I, 20-23. 

6 Ephes. V, 25-27. 



THE BRIDE 185 



And this fostering care of the Christ is 
answered by the effect produced in the be- 
loved Church so closely united to Him. The 
Church is the " fulness" of Christ: she is 
likened unto Him, — yes, unto similarity 
with Him in the failure of His Passion, but 
also unto a resemblance to Him in the glory 
of His Resurrection. More and more of 
mankind are always added to the children of 
His Church : more and more do the members 
partake of the holiness of the all-holy head : 
more and more the whole body "maketh in- 
crease . . . unto the edifying of itself in 
charity. ' ' And according to the all-holy and 
adorable will of God this is to go on through 
all the trials and conflicts of our days of 
warring, " until we all meet into the unity of 
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto a perfect man, unto the meas- 
ure of the grace of the age of the fulness of 
Christ." 1 

Such is the union between Christ and the 
Church, His Mystic Body. She is called 
His Mystic Body to show that there is no 
question of physical or hypostatic union 

lEphes. IV, 13. 



186 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



with Him; but to declare at the same time 
that the union is far beyond the nearness of 
symbolic relation. From the Christ to His 
Church there is actual physical supernat- 
ural influence through the divine grace 
which flows from Him. So close is the 
union that it is likened by Paul to the union 
between the Bridegroom and His Bride. 

In the prophecies of Ezechiel 1 and Osee 2 
and Isaias 3 God had spoken of His chosen 
people as His spouse. Alas ! only too often 
that spouse was faithless to her Beloved; 
and finally she was cast off by the outraged 
Lord because of her hardened infidelity. 
In the New Dispensation the new people of 
God, the new Israel, was the Church, the 
rejuvenated perfection of humanity saved 
and hallowed by the Christ and bound to 
Him as His Spouse forever. Yes, in a 
higher and more complete sense than that 
in which Israel was ever the spouse of God, 
the Church is the Bride of the Bridegroom 
Christ. 

St. Paul grows exultant as he looks upon 

ic. XVI. 

2 C . II. 

3 c. LVII. 



THE BKIDE 187 



her beautiful features and reads the hero- 
ism of her inmost heart. Saved by the 
Christ, subject to Him in tenderest love and 
not in servile fear, beloved by Him unto 
the extremity of death, nourished and fos- 
tered by Him with His very body and 
blood, purified and sanctified through all 
days until the final hallowing shall render 
her forever spotless and glorious, united to 
Him in a union so close that they are but 
one, — such is the Bride of the Bridegroom. 
"They shall be two in one flesh" were words 
spoken of the closest of earthly relation- 
ships : and this conjugal union is but a faint 
image of the union between Christ and His 
Bride. 1 In fact, the same name is given to 
both: Christ and His Spouse form "the 
mystic Christ." "For," says St. Paul, "as 
the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of the body, whereas 
they are many, yet are one body: so also is 
the Christ," 2 the mystic Christ, of whom 
the natural Christ is the head and the 
Church the body, the natural Christ is the 

1 Cf. Ephes. V, 21-33. 

2 I. Cor. XII, 12. 



188 CHEIST'S MASTERPIECE 



Bridegroom and the Church, the beloved 
Bride. 

From this glory of the Spouse of Christ 
St. Paul draws many lessons of practical 
import. From this comes the sanctity of 
the Church, the beloved of the King, the 
Mother of all those who are brought forth 
unto God ; for he who is not born of her is the 
child of a stranger. Yes, this is the back- 
ground of St. Paul's wonderful epistle to 
the Ephesians, in which the ardent lover of 
Christ traces so vividly the grandeur and 
splendor of the Church. 1 

As Christ's mystic body the Church is but 
one, just as Christ the head is but one. She 
is one body, animated by one Spirit ; tending 
to the one end of God's glory and the blessed 
happiness of the elect ; governed by one au- 
thority; one in the common faith in God, 
one in the sacred baptism which gives her 
being and growth, one as the family of the 
common Father, one as the Kingdom swayed 
by the sceptre of the only King. As the 
temple of God, builded upon the founda- 
tion of the Apostles, the Church is apostolic : 

i Cf. Prat, La Theologie de Saint Paul, I, 426 ff. 



THE BRIDE 189 



as the Kingdom of heaven on earth, which 
is to embrace all, she is universal. It is as 
Christ's Spouse that the Church is holy. 
The baptism which is the gateway to the 
Church and the door to life divine makes her 
children holy, so that the Apostle may call 
the faithful " saints"; and saints they all re- 
main with fundamental holiness until the 
day of rejection of the reprobates. Sad it 
is, though true, that this holiness is stained 
in but too many of the Church's children; 
but among many of them there always re- 
mains the transcendent sanctity, which is the 
fruit of Christ's love for His Spouse. She 
herself is always the hallowed one of God, 
and at the end she shall be the Bride "holy 
and without blemish" for whom the Christ 
delivered Himself up. 

And as she is the Bride of Christ, so is 
she the Mother of all the faithful. During 
the days of their wanderings and transgres- 
sions she yearns over those whom she has 
brought forth to God : she calls them to the 
Christ by whom they must live : she searches 
for them through all their revolts. With 
the tender affection of the Bride of the King 



190 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



throbbing in her great heart; with the deep 
love-light of her undying yearning speaking 
through her soulful eyes and thrilling her 
touching voice; with the mother-hunger of 
her love stretching forth her longing arms 
to embrace the whole wide world, — she is 
and has been and will ever be "the mother 
of all the living." 

What has she done for her children in the 
interests of their souls during the long ages 
that have passed since her betrothal with 
the King? What has she done for the 
world? Everything, everything. Look at 
the past, and as you look remember that the 
Church is the guardian of Christ's revela- 
tion and religion, the dispenser of His gifts 
of love to mankind. Hence, to review her 
work is to rehearse the accomplishments of 
Christianity. For Catholicism is Christian- 
ity undefiled; the Catholic Church is the 
Christian Church. Whatever of good has 
been effected by other Christian bodies, 
strayed away or cut away from her, has been 
brought about by what they had from her, 
even though the having of it meant theft 
or misfortune or blinded pride. 



THE BRIDE 191 



First, then, what has she done in behalf 
of the souls of her children? To give the 
answer means to go over the lives of those 
children of hers from the cradle to the grave, 
and to watch her work of sanctification 
through the sacraments of the King. She 
brought them forth to God in the "laver of 
water in the word of life." 1 She signed 
them with the might of the Holy Spirit unto 
the conflict for the faith. She raised them 
up after their weakness had yielded to the 
misery of human infirmity or to the fierce 
assaults of devilish attack. She fed them 
with the body and blood of the Incarnate Son 
of God. She provided for the continuance 
of the guardians of faith and morality, as 
she made " other Christs," who would have 
power over the real body of the Master, and 
would have sway over the mystical body of 
the King. She stood by their side as the 
shadows of life lengthened and the blackness 
of death closed in. She blessed the union of 
loving hearts with the consecrating benedic- 
tion of heaven, that they might bring forth 
children to be trained for the higher dignity 

i Ephes. V, 26. 



192 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



of supernatural holiness and might fill 
heaven with the sons and daughters of God. 
From birth to death her mother-love has 
brooded over her children. Nay, even be- 
fore their birth she, as no other has done, has 
guarded the life and rights of the unborn. 
And after death her care has not ceased ; for 
she has followed her own out beyond the 
borders of time even to the judgment seat of 
God and has pleaded for them there. She 
has brought help and solace to them in their 
purgatorial pains : she has gone with them 
into the glory of life eternal and calls them 
her own forever and forever. 

In the sorrows and injustices of life she 
has stood with them; and by the words of 
wisdom of her Bridegroom she has given 
high courage to souls bowed down before the 
awful mystery of evil in the world. She has 
told them that some of the hard things of 
life can be explained as due to the malice of 
men; and she has urged them to bide their 
time in patient love until the day when the 
just Judge will make all things right. But 
meanwhile she has taught them to look into 
the calm eyes of faith, to lean upon the 



THE BEIDE 193 



strong arm of hope, to rest upon the throb- 
bing breast of charity ; and that so they will 
have peace. Yet even whilst she solaced the 
oppressed, she has fought the oppressors, 
and has dinned into their ears the terrible 
truth of God's wrathful retribution against 
the spoliation of the poor and the grinding 
down of the weak and helpless, which are 
sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. 

She has taught her children the true out- 
look on life. They have not, she has told 
them, an abiding home here, but are pilgrims 
to the realm of God their Father, whither 
Christ their Elder Brother has gone to pre- 
pare them a place in His Father's house, 
where there are many mansions. The soul's 
higher life is the great thing, to be preferred 
before all the riches of earth, before all the 
satisfaction of ease, before all the pomp of 
pride. And never had the grandeur of a 
human soul stood out in such wonderful 
splendor, as when she taught man's brother- 
hood to the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
That soul crimsoned all over with the blood 
of the dying God-Man, — surely there was 
nothing which a man would give in exchange 



194 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



for his soul: surely it would profit a man 
nothing, if he gained the whole world, and 
lost his own soul for which Christ died. 

Thus with her hallowed doctrine of the 
King, her Bridegroom, with the sacred sac- 
raments of His overflowing love, and with 
her blessed sway over the souls of men whom 
she was to bring to God and keep there, she 
has done everything for the souls of her chil- 
dren. Yet she has not passed by their bodily 
needs: their material and temporal well- 
being she has not slighted. 

For these too she has provided and has 
blessed the whole world, as she blessed her 
own. Glance over the records of history and 
see the truth of this statement. Who found- 
ed and maintained hospitals for the care of 
the sick and the outcast? The Church. 
Who led in the struggle against the unholy 
traffic in human beings, dragged into slavery 
and ground down to the degradation of 
things ? The Church. Who gave up treas- 
ures and the comforts of home and country, 
yes, and life itself, to free captives from the 
misery of a state that was an earthly hell? 
The Church through her sons. Who opened, 



THE BEIDE 



195 



not merely houses, but homes for the poor ? 
"Who provided a peaceful and loving shelter 
for leper outcasts? Who sent into these 
havens of living death the noblest of her sons 
and daughters? The Church. There has 
not been a form of human suffering of body 
or soul, which the Church has not sought to 
relieve and to which she has not brought a 
large measure of alleviation through all the 
ages of her loving labors. 

And besides all this, or, if you will, 
through all this, she has been at the back of 
all the civilization and culture which this 
world of ours now possesses; she has fur- 
thered the temporal well-being of the human 
race. Let it be noted right here and with 
extreme emphasis that the material welfare 
of the world is not the thing for which the 
Church was instituted by the blessed Mas- 
ter. She was not founded for that; al- 
though, to listen to many religious workers 
of today, one would think that the chief, if 
not the only, work of the Church of Christ 
was meant to be the material uplifting of 
mankind. She was sent forth into the world 
to save the world and to bring it to God : she 



196 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



was founded to safeguard the revelation and 
religion of Christ the King and to hand it on 
unsullied to the end. Directly and immedi- 
ately she has nothing to do with the exclu- 
sively temporal prosperity of the human 
race: her end is higher and more sublime; 
for it looks to the spiritual and eternal in- 
terests of her children. Yet because of the 
deep charity which throbs forever in her 
motherly heart she is not indifferent to their 
material welfare ; and in the prosecution of 
her spiritual end she has done an enormous 
work for the civilization and culture of the 
world. In fact, all the civilization and cul- 
ture that we have owes much, if not all, of 
its existence to her. 

Civilization means an organized social and 
civic code and the stability of social relations 
between men, based upon the fundamental 
virtues of justice and honesty and truth. 
If the world but lives up to the requirements 
of these virtues, it is a civilized world. 
Nothing remains to be done but to formulate 
a public code in accordance with these prin- 
ciples, which have become facts, — and the 
whole work is ended. Can these virtues ex- 



THE BRIDE 197 



ist without the Church and the Church's 
teachings and the Church's means of grace? 
It would be rash to deny the possibility. 
But as a matter of concrete fact, where is 
the force that did inculcate these root-vir- 
tues and did bring them down into the con- 
sciences of savage rioters ? It was the Cath- 
olic Church. 

Pagan Rome's civilization was gone. It 
had died of the poison of slavery and licen- 
tiousness, and had disappeared before the in- 
vasion of the untamed children of the North. 
These barbarians had much of human nature 
still unspoiled; but for all that they were 
crude and wild savages. Yet it was the 
Church, and the Church alone who took 
them, and with much toil and more suffering 
through long and weary years molded them 
into her children, who held her sacred faith 
and clung to her motherly love. Many of 
them became great saints, though others re- 
mained at heart the untamed brutes that 
they had been. But the Church was undy- 
ing and could wait with a patience like the 
patience of God. And she did wait ; and she 
did labor, until she forced the great moral 



198 CHEIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



standards of justice and honesty and truth 
down into the depths of savage conscious- 
ness. She made these standards at least the 
principles of public life, no matter how much 
they were violated in the practical lives of 
many. 

And so, nations were born. The founda- 
tions of Christian civilization were laid, with 
the rights of the weak safeguarded against 
the encroachments of the strong. Only the 
perfection of the work was left to be accom- 
plished. "Thus," it has been well said, 
"savage humanity was tamed, uncivilized 
humanity was civilized, uncultured human- 
ity was cultured, and the Ages of Faith, 
called dark by those whose own minds are in 
darkness, were really the ages of light and 
progress and the triumphant witness of the 
civilizing power of the Catholic Church. 
The many defects which still survived were 
not a sign of failure, but only a sign that the 
whole of an enormously difficult task had not 
yet been accomplished. ' ' 1 

The Church not only brought about civil- 
ization : she developed culture. She aroused 

i Ernest Hull, S. J., in Catholic Mind, Jan. 22, 1916. 



THE BRIDE 199 



the genius of the masters of architecture; 
and the love for her Spouse flamed up into 
the throbbing sermons and poems in stone, 
which have made the cathedrals of Catholic 
days the marvels of the world and the models 
of succeeding ages. In their beauty and 
grandeur they were only the settings for the 
jewel of the Eucharistic God abiding with 
the children brought forth to Him by His 
Bride. The Church gave the ideals which 
flashed forth in gleams of beauty beneath 
the pen of poets like Dante, the chisel of 
sculptors like Michael Angelo, and the brush 
of painters like Raphael. She preserved the 
learning of olden days and fostered the intel- 
lectual pursuits of younger generations, and 
she filled the face of the earth with schools 
and universities. 

All this she did out of her motherly love 
for her children ; but she did it with her glow- 
ing eyes always fixed upon her everlasting 
home, whither the King had gone and 
whither she must lead her own. To bring 
them home, — this was the work near to her 
heart of hearts; this, the "one thing neces- 
sary." All else was to be attended to only 



200 CHKIST'S MASTEEPIECE 



in so far as it was not against this great 
object of her being, and in so far as it might 
even help to the glory of her Spouse. But, 
this object being attained, her charity was 
too big to be contained even within her great 
soul, and it overflowed upon the race of men 
with countless blessings even for their tem- 
poral weal. 

The realization of what the Church of 
Christ has done for us and for all men should 
be more than enough to wake within us deep 
sentiments of reverence and grateful love 
for her. Yes, we should venerate her and 
hold her dear for what she has done ; but we 
should not stop there. She has done what 
she has done, because she is what she is ; and 
that sublime excellence of hers should draw 
to her our admiration and our deepest affec- 
tion. Unless we are blind or are groping in 
the blackness of ignorance, excusable though 
it may be, we cannot love God without loving 
her, because of her close union with Christ 
the Son of God. She is the superb master- 
piece of His love for men. She is the con- 
tinuation of His work, — I had almost said, 
she is the incarnation of the Incarnate 



THE BRIDE 



201 



Word. She is His mystic body, vivified for- 
ever by Him who is her head. She is His 
Spouse, loved with an affection which could 
find an abiding place nowhere else than in 
the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. 

That riven Heart tells the magnitude of 
the love of the Bridegroom for His Bride, 
who as the Mother of all the faithful was 
to bring unspeakable blessings of soul and 
body to her children and to all mankind. 
She holds within her heart that love for men 
which urged the Victim of the world to love 
His own unto the end : she bears within her 
bosom the treasures of the precious blood of 
the Redeemer, shed on the shameful cross: 
she guards the channels of divine grace, 
which carry to men the streams of the super- 
abundant atonement of the Christ. 

And the cost of it all, and the symbol of 
it all, and the proof of it all is shown forth 
on Calvary. During the solemn sadness of 
Holy Week we are standing with Mother 
Church on the murky hillside of Calvary and 
looking up at the mangled figure on the 
cross. Oh, that we could see with her blessed 
eyes, with her living faith, with her thrilling 



202 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE 



hope, with her pulsing charity ! That body 
torn with the lash and showing disfigured 
wounds which gape like quivering mouths: 
that head crowned with the tearing thorns : 
that face, once so fair, but now swollen with 
the blows of ruffians, befouled with the spit- 
tle of human fiends, blackened with the clot- 
ted blood which has flowed down in trickling 
streams : those hands and feet dug with the 
nails and fixed to the hard wood: and that 
gashed breast, wide-opened by the soldier's 
spear deep down into the heart which throbs 
no more with quickening love for men, since 
it is stilled in death, — all these speak of the 
love of the Bridegroom for His Bride. For 
her He paid this price: Christ loved His 
Church and delivered Himself up for her, 
that He might sanctify her and might pre- 
sent her to Himself a glorious Church, not 
having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without 
blemish. 

Oh, blessed Mother, sacred with the holi- 
ness of the martyred Christ, may we by the 
grace of the world's Eedeemer be true to 
Him by being true to you through all the 
days of our earthly warfare ! And may all 



THE BRIDE 203 



the sons and daughters of men, who, because 
they do not know you, do not recognize your 
surpassing loveliness and your undying love, 
be brought to hear your yearning call to come 
to you! May they hearken to your invita- 
tion, and with childlike confidence and love 
throw themselves within your motherly 
arms! May God reign through Christ the 
King! May Christ the King rule through 
you, the Queen and Mother ! And thus may 
the whole great family of God be bound to- 
gether here in the bonds of united faith and 
holiness and loving subjection to the Most 
High, and hereafter in bliss eternal! 

For God this means honor and glory : for 
the blessed Church, the fulfillment of the 
King's trust of love : for us, the coming safe 
at last to the glorious and undying Kingdom 
of Christ in its heavenly joys forever and 
forever. 



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